Trump's small-dollar donations plummeted as he hounded his base for cash: analysis

Donald Trump's small-dollar donations have seen a big trend downwards as the former president hounded his base for cash, according to a new report.

Trump raised just just $51 million from small-dollar donors in 2023 in comparison to $626.6 million raised in 2020, according to an analysis by the Washington Post. Also in 2023, the Republican National Committee reportedly saw a drop in money from small-dollar donors in 2023.

“The biggest problem in GOP fundraising is that we don’t treat donors well,” Republican small-dollar fundraiser John Hall told The Post. “Sending eight emails and texts a day that promise an artificial match, threaten to take away your GOP membership, or call you a traitor if you don’t donate doesn’t build a long-term relationship with donors.”

After losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump flooded his mailing lists with requests for donations, prompting friends to complain they were be hounded, the Washington Post reports. Trump even heeded the warnings and asked his people to tone down the frequency of the requests.

Hall believes Trump's small donor boom slowed in 2023 because donors had been sent “too many messages that guilt them into donating,” according to Post. Hall added that people “being duped” into donating to candidates they didn’t know also played a role.

Also read: Trump pranks MAGA with April Fool's joke that turns into fundraising grift

Zac Moffatt, CEO of the digital marketing company Targeted Victory, believes the reason for the donation slowdown was a little more complicated, he told the Post.

“It’s easy to blame texts and emails, but people don’t want to state the obvious: There’s far more competition in the space,” Moffatt said.

“As more races come on board, more people are competing. It used to be 50 people trying to talk to them; now it’s 150, even if the donors have grown 25 percent.”

According to people close to Trump, the fundraising is gaining steam again thanks to criminal cases leveled against him, which have reenergized his base.