“A lot of people don’t believe he can win,” he said of Trump. “If people are giving $5 or $10 to a candidate, they’re going to have an engagement with the campaign,” he said.Īnother challenge for Clinton is that Trump doesn’t seem to motivate her supporters to chip in, said Michael Whitney, who was the digital fundraising manager for Sanders’ primary run.
Small-dollar donations can be a sign not only of financial health but enthusiasm for a candidate, said Brendan Glavin, the data manager at the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. Sanders had received money from 2.8 million individual donors by the end of June, while Clinton reached 2.6 million at the end of September between her campaign committee and a joint fundraising account with the Democratic Party, according to the campaigns.Ĭlinton’s difficulties tapping small donors support may reflect a lack of passion for her among the Democratic grass roots, who don’t see her as the leader of a movement they want be a part of, the way many perceived Obama or Sanders. It became a hurdle for Clinton in the primary as her smaller pool of donors bumped up against contribution limits set by federal law as Sanders continued to rake in tinier donations online.Įven after securing the nomination, she has struggled to match the breadth of Sanders’ fundraising network. Her database of active email addresses for her supporters, a key revenue-raising engine in modern politics, had been dormant for years and needed to be rebuilt as the campaign went on. Bernie Sanders’ underdog effort against Clinton in the Democratic primary.įor starters, she was a significant favorite in the race, making it difficult to convince her supporters that contributions of $5, $10 or even $100 would be needed. When both accounts are included, more than $231 million has been raised in chunks of $200 or less through the end of September, according to the campaign official, who requested anonymity to provide greater detail about fundraising.įollow today’s coverage of the presidential campaign on Trail Guide »īut Clinton aides also acknowledge inherent barriers to generating the kind of windfall that powered Obama’s campaigns and ultimately became a central part of Vermont Sen.
The campaign also pointed to the Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee with the Democratic Party that is a vehicle for bite-sized donations. More than 142,000 donors who originally donated less than $200 gave again, pushing their total past that line. Using a different formulation that includes low-dollar contributors who made additional donations until their total exceeded $200, grass-roots fundraising made up half of the campaign’s total, the official said.
“As the amount of time the secretary and her surrogates spend fundraising, it’s our online donors who almost exclusively will be supporting the campaign,” he said on a conference call with reporters.Ī campaign official also said that the true breadth of Clinton’s grass-roots fundraising is not easily quantifiable by a traditional measure - the number of contributions less than $200 reported to the Federal Election Commission - given low-dollar donors’ penchant for giving repeatedly. “Why don’t you put $10 million or $20 million or $25 million or $30 million into your own campaign? It’s $30 million less for special interests that will tell you exactly what to do,” he said at their second debate Sunday in St. Trump, who far outpaces her in the share of small donations that make up his fundraising total, has accused her of being beholden to special interests buying influence through large donations to her campaign. Later that night, Clinton flew to Beverly Hills for a dinner with donors and a performance from Elton John - the minimum ticket was $33,400, and $100,000 earned supporters premium seating.Īlthough it’s not unusual for a presidential nominee to hold fundraisers close to the finish line - President Obama attended at least eight in October 2012 - Clinton’s schedule, which included three such events on the West Coast this week, reflects her deep reliance on wealthy contributors.
Shortly after Michelle Obama finished a rousing speech denouncing Donald Trump’s behavior toward women, Hillary Clinton’s campaign texted supporters asking them to “chip in $1 to fight for women.”īut that wasn’t where the big dollars were coming from.