Dem candidates crush GOP in Q1

April 4, 2007

As impressive as Barack Obama’s first quarter fundraising is — and really, it’s astonishing — it’s also worth taking a step back and looking at how both parties are stacking up, in addition to the candidates.

I was going to tally the numbers, but it looks like Eric Kleefeld already pulled the data together.

Democratic Candidates
Hillary Clinton – $26 million
Barack Obama – $25 million
John Edwards – $14 million
Bill Richardson – $6 million
Chris Dodd – $4 million
Joe Biden – $3 million

Total: $78 million

(Note: No numbers have yet been reported from Dennis Kucinich.)

Republican Candidates
Mitt Romney – $23 million (including a loan of $2.35 million from Romney himself)
Rudy Giuliani – $15 million
John McCain – $12.5 million
Sam Brownback – $1.3 million
Tom Tancredo – $1.3 million
Mike Huckabee – $500,000

Total: $53.6 million

(Note: No numbers have yet been reported from Duncan Hunter, Tommy Thompson, Ron Paul or Jim Gilmore)

Their top six vs. our top six shows a nearly $25 million advantage — demonstrating a level of excitement, interest, and enthusiasm on the Democratic side of the aisle that just doesn’t exist among Republicans, who still don’t seem altogether pleased about their field of candidates.

Sure, a lot can change over the next year and a half, but is it me or does it seem like Dems are looking forward to 2008 a hell of a lot more than the GOP?

Also consider that the notion of a “donor class” in American politics seems to have disappeared altogether. Mark Schmitt explains.

Gore and Bradley had 51,000 contributors between them; we know that Clinton and Obama have 160,000 donors between them; assume another 80,000 among the other four (proportionate to their dollars), and you have roughly a quintupling of the number of people willing to donate early to a Democratic presidential campaign.

New money and new people — this is not your father’s Democratic Party!

I actually believe the number of donors this year is at least as impressive as the dollar amounts. Maximum contribution limits have gone up since 2000, so that might explain a little of the huge windfall, but the number of individual donors reflects a) the influence of the Internet; and b) a fundamental shift in how engaged Americans participate in the process.

A year and a half before the next election, and just a few months after the last one, a quarter of a million Americans donated a total of $78 million to Democratic presidential candidates.

There’s never been anything like this level of involvement in campaign history. Ever.

“There’s never been anything like this level of involvement in campaign history. Ever.”

How about that – a Bush legacy.

  • Better step up the investigations of the voting machinery.

    Seriously.

    That’s all the GOP has left.

  • Back in the 2004 campaign season I raised the issue (with other Dems) that I thought the Dem party should get behind some sort of campaign finance reform that would prohibit corporations and any other non-human ‘person’ or ‘entity’, including unions, from contributing to political campaigns and groups without the express approval of each specific contribution by a super-majority vote of its shareholders or members. My friends thought this would be crazy as it would hurt the Dems in the long run as GOP candidates would always have the backing of more wealthier individuals who could give larger sums. I felt that although the Dems might miss the cash that the unions provided, the GOP would miss the corporate money even more, and the Dems could make up any loss through better targeting of individuals who may not be able to give the maximum but who would be more than willing, if asked, to pony up some cash. The results noted above appear to provide support for the assumption that there is a whole lot of money out there and that lots of money can be raised, and sustained, through lots of smaller donations.

  • Dollars to doughnuts that someone on the Reich side of the issue starts wailing about how Dems are “all about the money….”

  • “There’s never been anything like this level of involvement in campaign history. Ever.”

    1858-1860 and 1930-32 could both claim a bit higher levels of campaign involvement, I think.

    But, the shifting balance of party identification and persistence of political dissatisfaction, combined with this kind of individual involvement and committment do signal that the oft-heralded political realignment may be in the offing.

  • I agree with Steve – time for the right wing to start talking of campaign finance reform to mitigate the Democrats’ advantages of more momentum, more interest and more money.

    And for all of McCain’s right wing whoring around, he still hasn’t turned enough tricks to be the Repub’s frontrunner in terms of finances. See what dishonesty gets you John?

  • I’d like to see total number of donors for each campaign, also. I’d bet, especially with Obama’s stellar preformance, that the gap between Democratic donors and Republican donors is more telling.

  • Maybe the GOP numbers have something to do with the fact that their own people are now comparing Bush to venerial disease…

    [Minnesota state] Representative Marty Seifert has made a name for himself as a “vocal” Minority Leader. Heck, a new word has already been coined for his outlandish attempts a folksy one-liners: “Seifertisms.” Well, it seems as though we can add one more to the long list of head-turning Seifertisms.

    On Thursday of last week Representative Seifert spoke to a large crowd at the League of Minnesota Cities Breakfast. At some point the conversation turned to why the Democrats had been so successful in the last election cycle. Rep. Seifert expounded on a number of reasons and at some point in this list said that it didn’t help that “the President’s approval ratings are right there with gonorrhea.”…

    http://www.mnpublius.com/2007/04/04/breaking-rep-seifert-compares-president-to-gonorrhea/

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