This weekend a star-studded fundraiser that cost over $300,000 for admission, alongside a series of internet-marketed Potlucks for Bernie have showcased the candidates’ two distinct fundraising styles. One pulls in money that even the host of the fundraiser called “an obscene amount” while the other has called in men and women who have never put their own money into an election cycle. Each style is a calculated strategy, designed to fund and win the race to the White House.
Clinton’s Classic Fundraising
Hillary Clinton utilizes a fundraising strategy that targets donations of a high monetary level. For example, in her first fundraiser back in 2015 she requested donations of $2,700 each. Clinton maintains an impressive number of contacts she can reach out to for financing, allowing her campaign to smash records and raise over $82 million more than Sanders. This would allow her, come the election, to create a massive media campaign to secure a victory over the Republican candidate.
Clinton’s strategy is a classic method of campaign fundraising. Politicians ranging from small, state legislators to senators of swing states use this strategy to get their funding. Races can get close and every dollar can bring you closer to a more secure victory, so it’s reasonable to expect a candidate to take help wherever they can get it. Even if you’re President Obama, who set the gold standard at the time for small donors, larger donations from single sources can be vital. It may not look as pretty, but it offers a surer chance of victory.
Sanders’s Internet-Based Fundraising
Sen. Sanders’s fundraising strategy focuses on smaller donations from a wider range of people. This gives a huge PR boost to Sanders when he can say his donations are small amounts from numerous Americans.
But this strategy comes with a major risk. Super PACs and larger donors can be relied on in order to provide funding, and it takes far less of them to fund a race then it does smaller individual donations. Sanders is impressive in that he has surpassed fundraising records, but other candidates that rely on such a strategy may not be so lucky.
Sen. Sanders has crafted a message that encourages voters to donate. His supporters hope that if he wins, then he can create change. However, in smaller races, supporters may be less inclined to have such faith in their candidates. After all, a president can affect the course of the nation, but a single representative in your local House may have their hands tied.
A strategy like Sanders’s means connecting with a massive number of people, and if that connection isn’t strong enough to win donations, then the campaign is dead in the water.
For Hillary, It Isn’t Just About Her Campaign
There’s one more, major difference between the two candidates’ strategies. In a tight, neck-and-neck race between a Democrat and a Republican, any extra funding that can be provided is a huge advantage. Clinton’s fundraising style has assisted in securing $18 million for Democrats in close races, which is crucial in beating Republicans across the nation.
As Sanders has such an independent platform and a grassroots movement, his strategy isn’t as capable of gathering money for his friends, and he has been reluctant to assist in fundraising for a party that can appear to back his competition.
Both these strategies are major record breakers in their respective fields. They’re two opposite strategies, but they are both geared to winning the White House and defeating the Republican frontrunner.
Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty.
