COVID-19’s Impact on Campaign Fundraising
Summary
COVID-19 has reduced the path of Republican campaign income by 16%.
COVID-19 has reduced the path of Democrat campaign income by 12%.
The Numbers
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.
So how bad has COVID-19 been for campaigns? With campaign finance reports for Colorado legislative races available we can now see.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s easier to see if we focus on the difference between actual income and the trend.
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.
So what are we really talking about? We all understand there was a slowdown, but how bad was it?
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.
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.
COVID-19 caused a -16% drop in income for Republican campaigns and a -12% drop in income for Democrat campaigns.
