Democrats ‘Shatter’ Fundraising Records As GOP Brand Turns Toxic

0
1089

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), an official party arm that handles state legislative races, has announced a record-breaking fundraising haul for the first quarter of 2021. Across the first three months of the year, the DLCC raised over $3.7 million, which the committee says “shattered” its previous first-quarter record for an off-year. The DLCC adds that the mammoth fundraising total also “broke the committee’s previous online fundraising record in the first quarter of an off-year and was powered by online, grassroots donors with over 47,000 individual contributions.”

Last month, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the main party organization, announced that they too had hit a record-breaking fundraising level. In February, the DNC raised $8.5 million, which was the most that it had ever raised in a February of a non-presidential election year and its second-biggest February fundraising total ever. Across January and February, the DNC raised a total of $18.4 million, which was its biggest January-February donation haul ever.

On a similarly promising note, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which handles U.S. Senate races, raised over $7.2 million in February, which was above the February fundraising total from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which backs Republican Senate campaigns. As DSCC chairman Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) put it:

‘As Democrats work to deliver progress for the American people while Republicans grapple with a wave of retirements, this record-breaking haul makes clear that our grassroots community of small-dollar donors remains energized about winning in 2022.’

In 2022, control of the U.S. Senate will be on the line, with Republicans defending 20 seats on the ballot and Democrats defending just 14. At present, Democrats have 50 seats in the 100-member chamber, and they’re in control thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’s role as a tiebreaker. Republican incumbents in potential swing states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina who’d be on the ballot in 2022 have already announced retirement plans, opening up opportunities for Democratic pick-ups. The Democratic majority in the U.S. House is similarly slim at present after a slew of 2020 seat flips in the chamber for Republicans.