She offered her honor, so I honored her offer. And all night long it was honor and offer
They like to say that polls are not dispositive, they are instead a snapshot in time. And that’s certainly true. It takes several consecutive sets of consistent polls to develop and show a trend.
But there is a different matrix you can use that is readily available publicly that I find even more effective in gauging momentum and enthusiasm. It isn’t put as frequently, but that’s fine, since the time lag makes it easier to do coomparisons and notice trends. And best of all, it’s put out by the FEC as well as occasionally the polls.
There are two numbers that tend to come from the same reports. The first category is small money donors. And the second is First time small money donors. And when you put them together properly, you can get a pretty good idea of which way a campaign is trending.
Good enough in fact that earlier today New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay was able to make a rather surprising assertion. Remember all of those Deep Pocket Democratic donors who were sitting on their wallets for as long as Biden was heading the ticket? Well, it appears they cut off their own noses with that little stunt. They’re no longer the Alpha Males in controlling the money flow to the campaign.
Let me explain. The first category, small money donors means exactly that, donors who submit donations under a certain amount. They can be, and as Teri and I, are often hit up repeatedly in the same cycle. If you see small money donations remaining level or slowly increasing, that basically means that the candidate is still relevant, and his or her message is still resonating. If that number goes down from cycle to cycle, that candidate or campaign has a serious problem.
First time small donors is an even more effective tool. If that number continues to rise, especially at a healthy clip, then not only does the candidate have room to grow with their message, but they are growing. A stalled number doesn’t mean the candidate is flailing, only that they either need a new message for a different demographic, or tweak the existing one.
Here’s why these numbers are so effective and why Gay could make her statement about how the Democratic big money donors screwed up. It was reported by the Harris campaign today that they raked in a whopping $84 million fundraising haul during the four day DNC alone. Coming off of an already record haul of some $500 million in the campaigns first 30 days, Harris and Walz can legitimately claim, as they are, of being a people powered campaign, avoiding the stigma of big money corporate sponsorship. And those donors can dip into their pockets over and over again.
Here’s why these numbers are basically as good as gold. Let me ask you a question. When is the last time you went online to order tickets to a movie, and then forgot or failed to show up and see the flick? I’m guessing never. By buying those tickets, just as with donating to a campaign, you have put skin in the game, and as a result are more likely to actually show up on election day and vote! You don’t just get up from a game and leave with money on the table.
It’s just as important for First time cycle small money donors. Here’s why. These campaigns have been fundraising for more than a year now on this race, and the earlier you can get donors the better, since you can hit them up again. The Harris campaign is an anomaly, since it’s only been in existence for a month. But remember, the country is basically split 45-45 with a 10% undecided. And right now we’re like 71 days from election day. If you see a campaign like Harris’s with a healthy first time cycle on or number, those are most likely coming from that limited pool of undecided voters finally making their move. And if they donate, they’ll likely vote.
We only have three more monthly fundraising disclosures left, August, September, and October, and one more FRC quarterly report due in early October. If Harris continues to show modest but steady first time donors while Traitor Tot continues to flatline, it means something more than just money for the campaign. It means new likely voters in November. And a campaign can’t have too many of those. And if those trends are obvious, then it will likely translate to the national polling as well.
Caveat. As effective as this tool can be in gauging the momentum and enthusiasm of a campaign, it can only be used for the presidential campaign. For the simple reason that while Teri and contribute to the Colin Allred campaign, living in Vegas, we can’t actually vote for him. That would invalidate the premise of the comparison. Nationally on the other hand, you can live anywhere and still vote for your candidate.
I thank you for the privilege of your time.
Excellent analysis. One more thing that’s telling is that even prior to Biden dropping out the campaign had a robust and well funded ground game. Since Harris became our standard bearer we’ve added 200,000 NEW volunteers and have the resources to train them! Yep, a lot of big money folks are wishing they’d played this differently. They’ll still get their phone calls taken but they won’t have the same level of clout they would/could have had.
And democracy is all the better for it.
Money talks…Trump walks.