美国国家公共电台 NPR Democrats Built A Small-Donor Money Machine. Now, Republicans Want Their Own

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Small donors¹ are one of the big reasons Democrats² now control the House of Representatives. The independent digital fundraising platform called ActBlue helped make that happen. Now Republicans want their own version of ActBlue. Here's NPR's Peter Overby.

PETER OVERBY, BYLINE³: In the House races, Democrats raised more than $62 million from donors of $200 or less. They beat Republicans among small donors by better than 2 to 1. This gusher⁴ shocked Republicans. Here's Virginia Congressman⁵ Dave Brat⁶ in a pre-election debate.

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DAVE BRAT: Millions and millions of dollars are coming in from Nancy Pelosi and every leftist group, including ActBlue. Please go research those groups. They are trying to buy this election.

OVERBY: Buying it with contributions averaging less than $50, according to ActBlue data. ActBlue isn't a party committee. It's a nonprofit entity⁷, like a utility, facilitating the flow of liberal money by processing credit card contributions at no charge to candidates. Any Democratic candidate or organization can use it. This election cycle, it handled contributions totaling $1.6 billion.

TOM EMMER: That's something that definitely has to happen on the Republican side.

OVERBY: Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer is the incoming chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which exists to help elect Republicans to the House. He's pushing the idea of a Republican ActBlue.

EMMER: This past midterm shows that waiting to do that has frankly⁸ put our candidates in a - at a severe disadvantage.

OVERBY: Here's the ironic⁹ part - small donors used to be a powerful weapon for the GOP 40 years ago. But now the party's strength is in billionaire money. One example - Miriam Adelson. President Trump¹⁰ gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom this month for her philanthropy.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I know the work you've done, and you have been truly incredible. Here to celebrate Miriam's award is Sheldon.

OVERBY: Charity aside, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson are also big Republican donors, giving nearly $300 million in the past four years. Emmer's goal of a partywide digital platform has its own obstacles. Here's one problem - Republicans already have a lot of digital fundraising platforms. As Emmer pointed¹¹ out, they're run by political consultants¹² as profit-making enterprises.

EMMER: I want to be careful with this because, you know, this isn't to be critical of anybody who's been involved. But it's just a fact that there are too many people who I think have protected territory, and they want to be that facilitator because of the financial incentive¹³.

OVERBY: Meanwhile, Trump's re-election campaign is gobbling up small contributions - nearly $14 million since he took office. Any new fundraising platform also faces a potential conflict. If it has links to party organizations, its hands will be tied whenever a Republican insurgent¹⁴ challenged a sitting House member.

DAVID KARPF: You're going to have outsiders who are trying to disrupt the system who are very popular with small donors. And the party's going to want to stand behind their incumbent¹⁵.

OVERBY: David Karpf is a political scientist at George Washington University.

KARPF: Doing what ActBlue does requires flexibility¹⁶ and giving up control. The Republican Party historically hasn't been great at this. They've wanted to provide a slate¹⁷ of candidates, say they're endorsed¹⁸ and then encourage people to donate to them.

OVERBY: So any new fundraising platform might be going up against the Republican establishment. Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.