Last month’s release of campaign finance data fueled speculation that Ron DeSantis was overly reliant on big-money donors.
An NPR report suggested the Florida governor has “small-donor problem” that could be a problem for him as the campaign unfolds.
“Just 15% of DeSantis' contributions have come from small donors, those given less than $200. That indicates a potential long-term problem for the Florida governor's campaign,” the report said.
But new reporting from The New York Times suggests other reasons for the dearth of DeSantis’ small donors.
The DeSantis campaign worked with WinRed, the company that processes most Republican political campaign contributions, to conceal donor information, including shielding their identity, a person familiar with the campaign told The Times.
The initiative could have implications for how much is known about future political contributors, the report said.
Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Shane Goldmacher write for The Times that:
“The arrangement appears to be the first of its kind for a presidential campaign since WinRed’s founding four years ago and could presage a return to an era in which far less information on small donors is made public, at least for Republicans.”
Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican consultant, told The Times he didn’t think the DeSantis campaign in concealing the contributors’ information had their privacy in mind.
“Generally, small donors don’t care about disclosure,” he said, noting that “the single most important aspect of the transparent philosophical debate is: Is somebody buying influence?”
Mackowiak suggested that concealing contributors could help the DeSantis control public information about his campaign.
“To the extent that unitemized contributions could tell you something about a candidate that might be valuable, it’s that they are regional, in one place,” Mr. Mackowiak said.
“The only thing I can think of is that their small donor base may be primarily Florida-based, and they didn’t want to appear like a regional candidate.”
