{"id":1897,"date":"2020-05-05T00:28:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T06:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/?p=1897"},"modified":"2020-05-05T06:48:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T12:48:49","slug":"covid-hits-campaign-fundraising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/covid-hits-campaign-fundraising\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19’s Impact on Campaign Fundraising"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Summary<\/u><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\n<\/i> COVID-19 has reduced the path of Republican campaign income by 16%.
\n<\/i> COVID-19 has reduced the path of Democrat campaign income by 12%.
\n<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Numbers<\/u><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There has been a lot of chatter about the new reality of fundraising during this pandemic. And most of that chatter has focused on the apocalyptic fallout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how bad has COVID-19 been for campaigns? With campaign finance reports for Colorado legislative races available we can now see.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contrary to popular belief, campaign income is highly predictable. Intuitively, people understand this — campaigns raise more in the heat of election season. Colorado’s campaign finance data is also very accessible and easy to work with which makes it a great weather balloon for getting an idea of the impact of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"campaign<\/a>
Graph 1<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Graph 1 shows the percentage of a campaign’s total fundraising that comes in week-by-week. In the earliest stages of the cycle, campaigns are raising around 0.5% of their total final income each week. By the end of the cycle, that figure rises to around 4%. Around 4% of all the money a campaign will raise comes in each week in the final month.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can take this trend and extrapolate it to future values as well. In doing so, we can see how far “off-trend” campaign fundraising fell after the pandemic reached Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2020<\/a>
Graph 2<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Graph 2 shows aggregate weekly campaign income for all Colorado State House campaigns during the 2020 cycle compared to the historical trend.
Heading into year-end we can see that Democrat State House races were running ahead of trend and Republicans were about on-trend. With the arrival of March and the pandemic, both sides fell below trend.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s easier to see if we focus on the difference between actual income and the trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"2020<\/a>
Graph 3<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Graph 3 shows how far above or below trend each party was week by week. There’s a clear slowdown into March followed by a sharp downturn mid-month as the lockdown went into effect.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what are we really talking about? We all understand there was a slowdown, but how bad was it?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heading into March Republican State House campaigns were on pace to raise a total of $1.2 mln for the cycle. Democrat campaigns were on pace for a $4.6 mln finish to the cycle. By the end of April, these figures were $1.1 mln and $4.1 mln respectively.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVID-19 has caused a $100,000 hit to Republican fortunes and $500,000 to Democrats. …so far. But to understand this in the broader context of the cycle and for applicability outside CO State House races we need to use percentages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COVID-19 caused a -16% drop in income for Republican campaigns and a -12% drop in income for Democrat campaigns.<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all knew fundraising was going to take a hit from COVID-19. But how much of a hit did we take? We break down the precise hit to campaign income from the pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,32,17],"tags":[23,14,19],"class_list":["post-1897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-campaign-finance","category-data-updates","tag-analysis","tag-campaign-finance","tag-data"],"wps_subtitle":"What has COVID cost campaigns?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1897"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1923,"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1897\/revisions\/1923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.constellationpolitical.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}