ActBlue sees $533M small-donor bonanza in first quarter
Democrats’ digital money machine had its biggest quarter ever to start this year, as online donors poured cash into the presidential primary and helped congressional Democrats build a financial advantage in many of their biggest House and Senate races.
More than 4.3 million donors gave $533 million through ActBlue, the online donor platform used by thousands of Democratic candidates and organizations, in the first three months of 2020. The group announced Monday that the quarter set records across numerous other metrics, too, including sign-ups for ActBlue Express — the feature that saves users’ credit card information, allowing one-click donations to campaigns using the platform.
Democratic presidential candidates accounted for a large portion of the first-quarter fundraising through ActBlue, with Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg bringing in a combined $162 million in January and February alone, per their most recent campaign finance disclosures. Reports covering March are due to the FEC on Monday from the presidential campaigns and ActBlue.
But even taking the presidential candidates out of the equation, Democrats saw a big fundraising jump via ActBlue last quarter — a huge boon to Democratic Senate challengers and House incumbents, after predictions that the presidential campaign would siphon away the online money that powered so many Democratic victors in the 2018 midterm elections.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/20/actblue-small-donor-bonanza-first-quarter-195434