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More than 40 percent of money donated to the Trump and Biden campaigns came from people giving less than $200, double the previous presidential campaign, according to U.S. PIRG research.
What to make of the genuinely good news in the ocean of 2020 campaign cash
Ready is the democracy program director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the network of state organizations that use research, grassroots organizing and direct advocacy to advance for social change.
As bizarre as it may seem, last year's presidential election provided us with a bona fide highlight.
No doubt, many Americans would be happy to never hear the phrase "2020 election" ever again. But despite all the chaos and cacophony, that campaign featured an important positive development for the health of our democracy.
While big money has been a powerful part of American politics since the country's founding, the voices of regular people, represented by small-dollar donors, may finally be coming to the fore. Not only is this development important in its own right, but it's also a change that impacts the landscape for presidential campaign finance reform.
In a democracy based on the principle of one person, one vote, all citizens should have the same ability to participate in the political process. But well before anyone can cast a ballot, the people able to write the biggest checks to candidates have too often determined who can even run, and thereby go on to win, elections. As a result, the theory goes, those who don't have big money, or access to it, have no voice and opportunity to meaningfully participate in elections. To address this power imbalance, reformers have long advocated for solutions such as small-donor empowerment systems.
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But while progress on reform has been slow, stymied by bad Supreme Court decisions and partisan gridlock, 2020 proved the landscape may be changing. It was a breakthrough campaign season for small-donor power in presidential elections. New technology transformed the way many presidential candidates chose to fundraise. Relying on big money was no longer the only viable way to collect campaign cash. This was clear in the primaries, when many candidates were able to rely on contributions below $200 to quickly raise enough to launch viable campaigns.
But financial supporters didn't just have a say in the primaries. The final fundraising numbers from the election also show that relying on small-dollar donors can be sustainable for a fall campaign. In the presidential race, donations from people giving less than $200 accounted for 43 percent of all the money given directly to Joe Biden and Donald Trump. This is twice as big a share as four years earlier, my organization has calculated. In 2016, just 21 percent of the money collected by Trump and Hillary Clinton was in increments below $200, the standard definition of a "small-dollar" gift.
The upshot: Small-dollar donors now contribute a significant portion of the presidential fundraising pie.
More importantly, the fast rise in this type of funding is not only a matter of percentages. It is also revealed in raw dollars. At $784 million, the amount raised by the major party nominees last year was more than four times as much as in 2016. Put another way, Trump collected more money just from his small-dollar donors last year than he did from all of his donors when he won the presidency.
The bottom line: It's no longer really true to say it's impossible to run a viable presidential campaign by relying on small-dollar donors.
So what does this mean for reformers, like my organization, who have long been working to change campaign finance laws to boost the political power of people who don't have many thousands of dollars at their disposal?
Well, it's back to the drawing board — but in a good way. With this new level of small-donor participation, such solutions as matching funds for presidential candidates don't really make sense any more.
Providing $6 in federal money for every $1 raised in small increments — the ratio for presidential candidates proposed in HR 1, the democracy overhaul bill now before the Senate after passing the House — would have had a perverse effect on the 2020 campaign: It would have given Biden and Trump another $4.7 billion to spend.
In what was already the most expensive presidential contest ever, that would, incredibly, be more than twice as much as what the two of them raised on their own.
Clearly, matching the small-dollar donations to last year's presidential candidates would have been serious overkill. Nevertheless, we should still encourage more participation from people with only relatively modest amounts to contribute.
Even with the rise in such giving, experts estimate only 10 percent of Americans make any donations to candidates. Reinstating a refundable tax credit for small contributions would help get more people involved. Not only could that tax break help propel the trend toward more and more small-dollar giving, but the reform also has the added benefit of support from across the political spectrum.
Of course, none of these reforms would address the huge sums being poured into campaigns by millionaires, corporations, trade associations, unions and all manner of politically active special interests. Nothing short of a constitutional amendment will close the loophole that permits them to "independently" spend as much as they want to help their candidates of choice. And the recent surge in small-donor giving at the presidential level probably will never be realized in many campaigns for the Senate and House.
Still, when it comes to presidential elections, we are closer than ever to an America where the size of a person's wallet does not determine the size of their political voice.
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"Mail-in ballots, while safer, take more time to transport and tally than traditional in-person voting," writes Ready.
Elections end when all the ballots are counted, not on election night
Ready is the democracy program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the network of state organizations that use research, grassroots organizing and direct advocacy to advance the public interest.
Golden State Warriors take 2016 NBA championship, 3-1. Cleveland Indians win 2016 World Series, 3-1. New York Yankees claim 2004 American League pennant, 3-0.
You don't remember those headlines? Of course not. Nobody ran those stories because, while those three series records all existed at one point, they were not the final results. To the dismay of fans in the Bay Area, northern Ohio and the Bronx, there were more games to be played — and the opposing teams ended up the comeback victors.
While we don't have a final whistle, buzzer or out in our elections, we still need to hold tight until every vote is tabulated. Historically, because the major share of all that counting has happened on Election Day, American's have almost always known the winner of their presidential contests at some point — often very late — the night of that momentous day.
But that's unlikely to be the case next month.
To protect public health, states across the country have wisely shifted toward allowing more voters to cast ballots remotely. But mail-in ballots, while safer, take more time to transport and tally than traditional in-person voting. Election administrators in many states won't even have all the ballots to count by the end of Election Day, much less the final totals.
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So, realistically, the presidential contest won't be over the night of Nov. 3 or even the next day. To keep the sports metaphors going, this series is likely going the full seven games. And yet, recently, there has been a lot of concern about what happens if election results change after election night. What if a Republican lead at 11 p.m. on Nov. 3 is just a "red mirage"? What if there is a "blue shift" in the days following the election?
This is the wrong way to think about the election results. Whatever the numbers are at midnight, they won't be wrong — they will just be incomplete. The results will certainly change as the votes are counted. What matters is how we react to and report on those changes. Americans must be reminded that they will need to be patient and wait longer than usual before we can declare any winners.
Fortunately, most voters already recognize this new reality. In fact, 71 percent of Americans do not expect to know the results of the election on Election Day, and 64 percent are comfortable with that delay.
But ultimately, the public will likely take its cues from our leaders and our media. Given the president's refusal to commit to abiding by the results of the election, and the Democratic fears of another Trump administration, we may not be able to rely on the candidates or parties to act responsibly.
That shifts the onus even further toward the media. There are numerous examples throughout history of journalists jumping the gun and prematurely calling an election. There's no room for that kind of error this time. In a mostly mail-in election, traditional measurements, like percentage of precincts reporting, should be replaced with metrics like percent of ballots received. Overall, America's reporters must be cautious and circumspect in their election night coverage to stave off confusion and potential chaos.
We would all do well to remember that on Election Day, there won't be a "red mirage" or a "blue shift." There will just be an ongoing election. That contest, like our favorite sporting events, won't be over just because one "team" is leading at midnight on Nov. 3. The 2020 election will be over when all the votes are counted, whenever that might be.
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"Every state has an opportunity and obligation to learn from the debacle in Wisconsin," writes U.S. PIRG's Joe Ready.
What not to do: Wisconsin provides a case study in election resilience
Ready is the democracy program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the network of state organizations that use research, grassroots organizing and direct advocacy to advance the public interest.
Last week's election in Wisconsin was a total failure of leadership. No one should ever be forced to choose between going to the polls and risking coronavirus infection, or staying home and forgoing the basic right to vote.
Yet despite the clear threat to public health and to our democracy, about 300,000 Wisconsinites confronted that very choice and decided to get out and vote. The full extent of the damage, both to human health and voter participation, may never be known.
What is abundantly clear though, is that with a bit of foresight and planning, this could have been avoided. Elected officials in Wisconsin and across the country should act now to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
States have a constitutional obligation to provide all voters the opportunity to participate in elections safely. But for too many Wisconsinites, the long lines and packed polling places, as well as the confusing and (up until the eve of election day) constantly changing absentee voting policy, casting a vote under the life-threatening cloud of a deadly disease seemed too dangerous. That can't happen again.
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The Covid-19 outbreak has exposed a gaping hole in our election systems. Very few states have established voting procedures to withstand the public health emergency that a pandemic presents.
Over the past weeks, we've seen states scramble to come up with ways to safely run elections. Some states, including Maryland, were successful. Republican Gov. Larry Hogan decided weeks ago to turn his state's April 28 special congressional election in Baltimore into a vote-by-mail contest, and to postpone the state's spring primary to June.
Of course, safe, secure elections can't happen overnight. It takes time — as well as money and infrastructure — to print ballots, mail them to voters, staff polling places and implement systems for tracking and counting votes. With that in mind, every state has an opportunity and obligation to learn from the debacle in Wisconsin and start work now to quickly establish plans for resilient elections come November.
Fundamentally, each plan should ensure that every voter is able to access and cast their ballot safely, even if the novel coronavirus persists. More specifically, states must untether themselves from the traditional voting model — the idea that everyone votes on one day at one place.
We need to create more space, both literally and figuratively, for people to engage in the election process. One of the best ways to do that is to expand access to voting by mail, up to and including having the emergency option to mail every eligible voter a ballot directly.
Vote by mail isn't perfect; there is real value in a private voting booth. But during a pandemic, the advantages and necessity of emergency universal vote by mail are clear. If by November, allowing thousands of people to congregate at the polls still presents a public health risk, states need to have the ability to directly mail all registered voters an absentee ballot. This would allow them to make their voices heard from the comfort and safety of their own homes.
In addition to expanding voting by mail, states should expand access to voter registration, adjust deadlines and make plans to accommodate voters for whom voting by mail doesn't work. Building out all of these systems will require additional infrastructure and a robust public education effort.
The smart thing to do is to plan for a Nov. 3 when Covid-19 is continuing to make crowding in public places unsafe. That planning needs to start today. Seven months from now, there will be no excuse for elected officials caught unprepared.
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