2020 Presidential Fundraising — Donor Sharing
We’re taking a closer look at the fundraising reports of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, and have so far reviewed contribution sizes as well as where around the country donations were flowing in from.
In this article we’re looking at something especially interesting: how campaigns are “sharing” donors with other campaigns. As it is still early on in the campaign, most candidates have focused heavily on shoring up support among their existing base of donors. But in such a large field, many donors are clearly still making up their minds about who to support — and are playing the field by donating to multiple candidates while they watch the race unfold.
Contributions of $200 or more to multiple candidates is still relatively rare at this early stage, but they provide important insight about how donors are thinking about their options. It may represent a broader belief that two or more candidates share some qualities — and that they occupy a similar fundraising “lane” that they may have to dominate in order to fully fund their campaigns.
One takeaway is how many donors Senator Kamala Harris shares with other candidates. Harris had one of the most impressive first quarter, and it’s not clear if her campaign has been successful in fundraising from donors to other campaigns or if other campaigns have been successful in poaching some of hers. In either event, she clearly holds relatively broad appeal across the Democratic donor universe. In fact, over $475,000 has flown from donors to Harris’s campaign, to the campaigns of her competitors. Harris is also the greatest beneficiary of campaign cash from donors who have also supported her opponents —over $340,000 she raised was from donors who also gave to her opponents. A very high percentage of that money- about 56%- came to her in the form of max-out donations.
Other top beneficiaries of their opponent’s donors are Senator Cory Booker, and former Congressman Beto O’Rourke — both also raised over $300,000 from that group, and are heavily skewed towards max-level donors (48% and 60% of their “shared donor” haul, respectively). Senator Amy Klobuchar’s and Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s, too, have raised a good deal of money from their opponent’s donors (about $293,000 and $300,000, respectively), though only 40% of the contributions Klobuchar has received from these “shared donors” have come in via max-out checks. Both Klobuchar and Buttigieg’s donors have also given to a somewhat broad spectrum of other candidates.
In pretty stark contrast, Senator Bernie Sanders has very little donor overlap with any other candidate, except Senator Elizabeth Warren, where there are still few shared donors. This is also likely impacted by the fact that we can only see this type of donor alignment when a donor contributes $200 or more, and both Sanders and Warren have largely eschewed larger donors. This is apparent, too, when looking at the size of contributions Warren has received from donors who have also supported her opponents. Only 20% (just $36,300) of her donations from these type of donors, were max-out contributors to her.
This early in the campaign and with such a big field, having supporters that are uniquely passionate about your campaign is important to distinguish yourself from the crowd. However, it will become increasingly important as the field winnows that the remaining candidates and ultimate nominee are able to garner the financial support of those that had once backed another candidate. The ability to poach an opponent’s donors and stave off the same will probably be critical to surviving the primary, and the first quarter reports suggest how some of that might begin to play out.
