Democratic donors turn off the flow of money

Democratic donors — from bundlers to small dollar donors — say they are still angry about the election results and uninspired by anything their side has put forward since then.

“I’ll be blunt here: The Democratic Party is f---ing terrible. Plain and simple,” said one major Democratic donor. “In fact, it doesn’t get much worse.”

A second donor was equally as pointed. “They want us to spend money and for what? For no message, no organization, no forward thinking,” the donor said. “The thing that’s clear to a lot of us is that the party never really learned its lesson in 2016. They worked off the same playbook and the same ineffective strategies and to what end?”

Much of the consternation among the donor community stems from the unprecedented 2024 election cycle, where many felt misled by the party and former President Biden’s reelection campaign. Until the Democratic debate in June, donors and fundraisers were led to believe that Biden could once again defeat Trump, even as many had serious reservations about it.

And even when former Vice President Kamala Harris took the reins as the Democratic nominee, donors say, they poured gobs of money into what was ultimately a campaign that ran an outdated strategy.

This is worse than 2016,” the first Democratic donor said. “Our party is so weak and so diminished.”

“I’ve talked to a number of donors who just don’t have a lot of confidence after 2024 and want to see how people are thinking about issues differently,” he said.

While he said donors are taking calls, they are “asking harder questions which I think is a good thing.”

“Frankly a lot of donors I’ve talked to don’t think their voice mattered in 2024, so I’ve been doing more listening than talking,” Schale added.

LINK