money Democrats smash donation records following death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Democratic donors smashed records on Friday night following the news of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Online donation processing site ActBlue reports that in the 9pm hour after the news broke, donors gave $6.2m — more than in any single hour since the launch of the site in 2004.
That record was toppled in the 10pm hour when donors gave another $6.3m.
For two hours, more than $100,000 per minute was being donated to Democratic causes.
The previous record for donations in an hour was on 20 August when former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden addressed the party convention. That night, $4.3m was raised in an hour.
A confirmation fight for a Supreme Court seat, coupled with an election that could determine the direction of the country for a generation, have proved powerful motivators for supporters to open their wallets.
August 2020 was ActBlue’s biggest month ever — more than 4 million unique donors gave 10,654,586 contributions on the site, for a total of $485,400,545. By 31 August $3bn had been raised in the 2019-2020 election cycle.
Tommy Vietor, a founder of Crooked Media group and an Obama administration alum, told The New York Times: “The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court only motivates Republicans, but these fund-raising totals demonstrate that that has changed.”
A sizeable portion of Friday night’s donations will be directed towards Senate races in which Democrats may be able to unseat Republican incumbents, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Senator McConnell has announced his intention to push ahead with hearings once a nominee is chosen by president Donald Trump.
A page created by Crooked Media, called Get Mitch or Die Trying, attracted more than $3m in three hours. Proceeds will be split between 13 Democrat candidates running for the Senate.
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