• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Campaign Finance>
  3. campaign finance>

How you and your neighbors are offering an alternative to the ‘big-donor primary’

Joe Ready
November 21, 2019
How you and your neighbors are offering an alternative to the ‘big-donor primary’

"Candidates should be accountable to, and dependent on, regular folks — not only people, special-interest groups and institutions with lots of money," argues Joe Ready.

Logan Mock-Bunting/Getty Images

Ready is democracy program director for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which advocates for the public interest.

The presidential election is less than a year away and the Democratic voting begins in less than three months, but every day between now and then, the candidates are also competing in a "big-money primary."

You didn't get a ballot for the big-money primary? Don't worry, most of us don't. Here's how it works. Running for office is incredibly expensive. Unless candidates are independently wealthy, they often need to court contributions from megadonors or corporate interests to be competitive in their races. So, a very small number of people have massive influence on who runs for office — and well before any of us get a chance to cast a ballot. It's been this way for years.

But in the 2020 presidential election, there are signs that big money's grip on our democracy may be loosening. Through October, contributions of less than $200 were the single largest source of funding for the presidential candidates, according to a U.S. PIRG analysis of Federal Election Commission data. In total, candidates have raised almost $192 million in small-donor funds. That's nearly twice as much as the total contributions from big-donor-funded political action committees and other organizations. It's also nearly $100 million more than candidates had raised at the same point in the 2016 campaign.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter


This development has the potential to help shift our democracy. Six of the leading candidates — President Trump, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Peter Buttigieg, Sen. Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden — have each raised more than $10 million from small donors. At this point in the campaign, Sanders has raised more money from 2020 small donors than he had from all donors in 2016. With these sorts of hauls, it's clear that candidates can raise enough to run a small-donor-powered campaign.

So what's changed? There are at least two possible reasons — one technological, one cultural.

Technologically speaking, the internet has made fundraising from small donors easier than ever. With email and social media, asking a million people to contribute is as easy as asking a single person. When combined with the visibility and name recognition inherent in a presidential campaign, we may be close to peak small-donor efficiency.

But internet efficiency only explains part of the increase in giving. The culture around contributing has changed, too. Successful small-dollar fundraising creates a virtuous cycle. Candidates pointing to successful small-donor totals convincingly show how the average person is making a difference. People can see communal action adding up to something significant. In that light, pitching in $20 for the candidate of your choice seems more rational.

This isn't to say that big money doesn't still have an undemocratically large amount of influence. After all, contributions greater than $200 still account for 34 percent of all presidential campaign funds. In addition, the small-donor gains being made at the national level haven't moved down the ballot just yet. Even in high-profile, statewide campaigns like next year's Senate races in Colorado and Maine, candidates have so far raised 300 percent more money from large donors. In other words, the big-donor primary is still going strong.

That said, there are ways to reduce that influence. State and city policies, such as tax credits and matching public funds for small political contributions, can help increase this type of participation.We should continue to fight for those sorts of reforms at the federal level. In the meantime, we should celebrate the remarkable growth of small-donor power. Candidates should be accountable to, and dependent on, regular folks — not only people, special-interest groups and institutions with lots of money.

From Your Site Articles
  • A Republican's call for civic courage to stop dark money - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Small Donor Donations are are a Real Alternative to Big Money ... ›
campaign finance
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

The U.S. has been seeking the center since the days of Teddy Roosevelt

Dave Anderson

Imperfection and perseverance

Jeff Clements

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Anushka Sarkar

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Debilyn Molineaux

Inflation will hit health of low-income Americans hardest

Robert Pearl

Caught in a draft

Lawrence Goldstone
latest News

Podcast: Abortion politics take center stage

Our Staff
4h

Your Take: Inspiring sports memories

Our Staff
20 May

GOP split: Far right gains ground in East, while losing out West

Steven Rosenfeld
20 May

Podcast: Women in and out of politics

Our Staff
20 May

Democratic senators seek $20 billion in election funding

Reya Kumar
19 May

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Our Staff
19 May
Videos

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirstFriday Yap Politics

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Podcast: Abortion politics take center stage

Podcast: Abortion politics take center stage

Leadership
Theodore Roosevelt

The U.S. has been seeking the center since the days of Teddy Roosevelt

Leveraging big ideas
Your Take: Inspiring sports memories

Your Take: Inspiring sports memories

Your Take
Doug Mastriano

GOP split: Far right gains ground in East, while losing out West

Leveraging big ideas
Podcast: Women in and out of politics

Podcast: Women in and out of politics

Leadership
Statue of William Henry Seward

Imperfection and perseverance

Civic Ed