New tool aims to help liberal donors get bigger bang for their political giving

The goal of Blueprint, the new venture from Swing Left, is to guide Democratic contributors to the races where their money can make the most difference this year. Catherine Vaughan, the group's chief operations officer, calls Blueprint a "one-stop shop" that creates personalized recommendations for donors to help drive giving to key Senate, state legislative contests and groups focused on voter registration and turnout.

"Democratic funding tends to be top heavy, really focused on the top of the ballot, whether it's the presidential nominee or even House or state candidates," Vaughan said. "But a lot of down-ballot candidates are way less visible and end up getting way less funding."

Right now, the new effort, shared first with CNN, is focused on candidate races in four states. In two, Pennsylvania and Arizona, Blueprint is working to direct donations to Democratic candidates in state legislative races and to Mark Kelly, the presumptive Democratic nominee in the Arizona US Senate race. In the remaining two, Iowa and Maine, the group will aim donations to Democratic nominees hoping to take on the incumbent Republican senators, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Susan Collins of Maine.

The platform also will send donations to groups working on voter outreach. They include Leaders Igniting Transformation, a group that aims to register nearly 12,000 young people of color in Wisconsin, and Fair Fight and the New Georgia Project, two groups founded by Stacey Abrams. Abrams, who narrowly lost the Georgia governor's race in 2018, has been mentioned as a possible running mate by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Donor enthusiasm

Democratic giving has exploded online in recent years.

In the two-year cycle headed into the 2018 midterms, liberal donors contributed a staggering $1.6 billion to Democratic candidates and groups through ActBlue, the main engine for liberal online giving. ActBlue is on pace to blow past that in the 2020 cycle.

Last year alone, some six million donors contributed $1 billion through ActBlue -- in a sign of continued donor enthusiasm following the party's takeover of the US House in the 2018 midterms. By comparison, WinRed, a Republican online fundraising platform launched last year, raised about $101 million in 2019.

(WinRed has seen a sharp increase in giving this year and reported collecting more than $130 million during the first three months of 2020 as more Republican donors use the platform.)

Vaughan and the Swing Left team, however, say the gushers of liberal money isn't always spent effectively. More than half of contributions to congressional Democrats in 2018 went to races that weren't particularly competitive and were won or lost by more than 10 points, according to Swing Left.

And Swing Left officials argue that too much of the giving focuses on high-profile federal races. Democratic donations to congressional races soared by 138% between the 2014 and 2028 midterms, while giving to state legislative races jumped by a more modest 27%, according to the group's tally.

In addition, nearly half -- or 45% -- of ActBlue donations in the midterms flowed to candidates and groups at the tail end of the election cycle, in the third and fourth quarter of the election year, long after candidates needed the money to hire staff and build campaign infrastructure.

To better spread the sums over the calendar, Blueprint is distributing donor money on a monthly basis.

"The candidates who have the really great viral video or who get a lot of attention in the media may not be always be the same candidates who need that funding the most," Vaughan said. As one example, she cited former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke's campaign for the Senate. The Democrat raised a record-shattering $80 million in his unsuccessful 2018 effort to unseat Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.

But his fundraising came as "his counterparts running for the Texas state house or the Texas state Senate were just raising $100,000 and having their Republican opponents outspend them," Vaughan said.

"There's probably a point, under $80 million, at which a marginal dollar would have been better spent at one of the several organizations in Texas that's doing really good work in driving turnout," she added.

ActBlue platform

Blueprint will run on the ActBlue platform, where more than 9 million donors already have saved their payment information for one-click political giving.

Swing Left is focusing its broader 2020 efforts on a dozen "super states," ranging from Arizona to North Carolina, that the group views as key to winning the White House, flipping control of the US Senate to Democrats and influencing which party controls the state legislatures that will oversee drawing congressional district maps following the 2020 Census.

Blueprint's formal rollout, initially slated for mid-March, was delayed by the public health crisis unleashed by the fast-spreading coronavirus.

"In many ways, (the outbreak) shows that strong capable leadership is more important than ever," Vaughan said. "I think a lot of people are becoming reacquainted with their governors right now and understanding the role of local, state and the federal government in dealing with this kind of crisis."

Erin Hill, the executive director of ActBlue, said coronavirus has offered an incentive for Democratic donors to give.

"A lot of folks are scared," she said, "but also a lot of folks are really frustrated right now and are looking for constructive and positive things to do that are going to help their the world, so we don't end up in this position again."