‘Adapt immediately or find a new job’: Senate GOP confronts fundraising emergency
Democrats’ online fundraising has caught fire again ahead of 2020, giving them a boost in the fight for the Senate majority.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is facing a well-funded challenger.
By ELENA SCHNEIDER, JAMES ARKIN and ALLY MUTNICK
07/13/2020 04:30 AM EDT
Last month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee prepared a slideshow for Senate chiefs of staff full of bleak numbers about the party’s failure to compete with Democrats on digital fundraising. For anyone not getting the message, the final slide hammered home the possible end result: a freight train bearing down on a man standing on the tracks.
The slideshow, obtained by POLITICO, painted a grim picture of the GOP’s long-running problem. Republican senators and challengers lagged behind Democrats by a collective $30 million in the first quarter of 2020, a deficit stemming from Democrats’ superior online fundraising machine. Since then, Democrats’ fundraising pace accelerated further, with the party’s challengers announcing huge second-quarter hauls last week, largely driven by online donors giving through ActBlue, the party’s preferred fundraising platform.
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The money guarantees Democrats nothing heading into November 2020. But with President Donald Trump’s poll num
