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The first 2020 fundraising deadline has come and gone. How will it shake up the presidential race?

What to expect when you're expecting FEC reports.

March 30 marked the first fundraising deadline of the year. What's next for Democratic contenders? CREDIT: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
March 30 marked the first fundraising deadline of the year. What's next for Democratic contenders? CREDIT: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Just before 10 p.m. Saturday, Rosie Castro sent out an email to thousands of people, with a fervent but rather modest request.

“I’m about to ask you for $10 to help my son Julián before his deadline in 24 hours,” it read.

“My mom — Julián’s grandma — moved to the US from Mexico as an orphan when she was seven. I watched her work so hard, cleaning houses day and night to provide for me. As a single mom raising my two sons, I instilled this same work ethic in them.”

A follow-up email the next day came from the candidate himself, Julián Castro (D-TX), the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under former President Barack Obama who is now running for president.

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“My mom Rosie asked. My wife Erica asked. And now I’m asking,” the email read. “That’s how important my first End of Quarter Deadline tonight is. Will you rush in $12 before my deadline hits in 12 hours?” Castro wrote, an appeal similar to requests sent by the more than one dozen other presidential contenders.

That’s how it was in the hours before midnight on March 31, as the deadline approached for the presidential candidates to file their first fundraising reports and they made last-minute pleas with the aim of boosting their numbers.

The first real contest in a crowded field

Money has never been the end-all-and-be-all for a presidential candidate, but it remains an important metric of voter enthusiasm, and an essential lubricant without enough of which any campaign would come grinding to a halt.

And as in past election years, fundraising also is the first real contest among the crowded band of candidates, as they get to measure in dollars and cents the zeal and commitment of their supporters — and those of their competitors.

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Campaign fundraising also has the potential to re-order the race, changing or solidifying perceptions of who’s up and who’s down, as became apparent within hours of this weekend’s filings.

Late Monday, Sen. Kamala Harris announced that her campaign had raked in a hefty $12 million in donations in the two months since she announced her White House run. The California senator has been among the Democratic contenders with the strongest polling numbers and has earned generally high marks so far for her performance on the stump.

Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg — the mayor of South Bend, Indiana — has gone from earnest and affable outsider to a major contender in the eyes of some political observers, on the strength of his $7 million first-quarter fundraising performance.

The number of contributions each campaign earns is more significant than ever this year because it will help shape the upcoming debates. The Democratic National Committee has set 65,000 individual donations as the threshold for making the debate stage.

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That partly explains the fervor of Castro’s (literal) 11th-hour appeals. While it’s not clear exactly how far the San Antonio, Texas, native is from netting 65,000 donations, he made clear on Sunday that he had a way to go.

“Our momentum is growing strong, but I haven’t qualified for the Democratic debates yet,” Castro tweeted less than two hours before the midnight deadline. “I need 65k gifts to get there.”

Experts say that reports from the Federal Election Commission — set to be made public later this month — provide an important indicator about which candidates are resonating with voters early in the primary campaign. That’s why the whole field was clamoring for funds in the hours before the deadline — and pushing especially hard for small contributions from donors they hope to tap again and again.

Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s campaign sent 10 fundraising emails to its gargantuan donor list between Friday and Sunday. Others begged on Twitter: “We’re a few hours away from our biggest test of the campaign: the first [Federal Election Commission (FEC)] filing deadline,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) tweeted. “If you’re with me, donate $3 before midnight.”

Buttigieg, originally viewed as a long shot, has been defying expectations in the polls, garnering glowing coverage — and now hefty amounts of cash — even though his campaign technically is still in the exploratory phase.

 “We (you) are outperforming expectations at every turn,” he wrote as he celebrated his campaign’s $7 million haul. “I’ll have a more complete analysis later, but until then: a big thank you to all our supporters.”

Another fundraising bonanza was announced Tuesday by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose campaign announced that it raised $18 million in the first quarter, and on Wednesday, O’Rourke announced his campaign had raised $9.4 million in its first 18 days.

All FEC reports will become public in the next two weeks, and if candidates have impressive fundraising figures to report, they too are likely to trumpet their numbers in the coming days.

The money metrics that matter

But fundraising prowess is just one metric of the strength of a campaign, experts said. How judiciously the candidates spend matters almost as much. Political analyst Kyle Kondik said he’ll be looking in the FEC reports to see which candidates are hemorrhaging money.

“As a function of cash on hand, we can get a sense as to how much a campaign has spent,” said Kondik, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “Sometimes a candidate is building out his or her organization and builds such a big organization that they don’t have the fundraising [to keep the campaign going] over the long haul.”

Kondik will also be looking to see how many candidates’ donors have already reached the limit for allowable contributions. “That could maybe be predictive, if there are many more donations to be had or if a candidate is maybe able to get a bunch of max donations — a sort of low-hanging fruit from their most hardcore supporters — and then maybe there’s not enough room to grow,” he said.

Building a small-dollar network leaves room for growth, as campaigns can continually ping supporters for $20 every few weeks and they won’t run up against donation limits.

Laura Olin, a digital strategist for Obama’s 2012 campaign, said the number one thing she’ll be looking for is whether there’s a candidate who has a big topline fundraising number compared to how big she assumes their fundraising email list is.

In the first 24 hours of their respective campaigns, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and O’Rourke announced said they had both raised an eye-popping $6 million. Olin said that’s directly correlated with the size of a candidate’s donor list. Sanders built a big list from his previous presidential run, and O’Rourke was able to build a juggernaut during his high-profile Senate race.

But it was Buttigieg who looked to be the early winner of Olin’s list-size-versus-haul prize, after he announced last month that he had qualified for the debate stage with more than 65,000 donors.

She said only about 3% of people who receive any given fundraising email actually donate — which probably means that, despite his small-town roots, Buttigieg’s list is very extensive. 

Even though it’s still early, insufficient fundraising can create real problems quickly as campaigns moves into high gear. 

“If you can’t raise the money now to get more staffers, the whole operation is weaker as a whole. [Early fundraising] definitely an indicator,” Olin said. “If a campaign isn’t raising money now, it puts them in a really poor position.”

This year in particular, there is an enormous focus on small donations. Sanders has long touted his $27 average contribution, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has sworn off accepting any money from lobbyists or super PACs.

Warren’s fundraising numbers in particular will be under close scrutiny due to her big-money boycott — a decision that The New York Times reported cost her her fundraising director, who left amid fears the decision could crash the campaign before it even got off the ground.

Although the field has been paying lip service to small-dollar contributions, The New York Times reported last weekend that Democrats also have been courting big donors behind closed doors. Kondik said that sets the stage for a brutal intra-party fight in which candidates more reliant on small-dollar donations attack the others.

“Democrats, as part of their campaign messaging, are assailing big donors, talking about changes to campaign finance law in the United States, changes to Supreme Court jurisprudence,” he said. “There is going to be discussion, I think, of where candidates are getting their money from.”

Having a big war chest — whatever the source — could prove key in a crowded primary. But donations aren’t necessarily destiny.

“Like we saw in 2016… one candidate [can just get] literally hundreds of millions of dollars of free earned media,” said Olin, referring to President Donald Trump, whose unorthodox, insurgent campaign received exhaustive media coverage.

There are already echoes of that breathless coverage in the current Democratic primary. “Obviously, as we’ve seen already some candidates are getting way more attention in cable media… which might make actual fundraising a little less impactful,” Olin said.

Also blunting the impact of campaign fundraising is the size of the war chests some contenders — who are already elected officeholders — bring with them into the presidential contest. Politico reported that Warren and Gillibrand each have $10 million from their successful Senate reelection campaigns. Sanders has about $9 million, Booker about $4 million, and Klobuchar about $1.3 million.

Politico noted that Klobuchar, unique among the Democratic field, has made a significant investment in advertising on Facebook as a fundraising tool. It’s a space that the Trump campaign has invested in significantly as well, but something of a gamble for Democrats.

“Obviously, the Trump people have figured out ways to generate revenue on Facebook… [but] it’s where old, white people are. I don’t think we can use that tactic the same way,” said Olin, adding that when it comes to raising campaign cash, “email remains king.” 

“It’s funny, I got into digital politics in 2007-ish. I remember even back then, people were saying, ‘Email’s dead, we gotta find what the next big thing is’,” she said. “But it just never ever gets surpassed.” 

This post has been updated with fundraising figures announced Tuesday by the Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke campaigns.