An agreement on small-dollar donations has been reached between President Donald Trump’s political team and top Republican officials that will create a central platform to bring in donations and close the fundraising gap that hindered GOP candidates during the midterm elections.
“The Democrats clearly in congressional races — not at the presidential level but in congressional races in 2018 — had an advantage in small-dollar donors," Mike Shields, a Data Trust senior adviser, told Politico, which reported the agreement in an exclusive. "It's because they had the mechanism to harness and add rocket fuel to that energy."
Republicans are hoping to create a conservative rival for the Democratic online fundraising mechanism ActBlue, which brought in more than $700 million toward the 2018 campaigns.
GOP leaders, including White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel have been insisting their party needed to create a rival.
In addition, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who spent more than $100 million during the GOP's midterm campaigns, had made it clear that the party had to find a solution for its small-donor campaign collection problems.
Unlike Democrats who were able to use ActBlue as a central donation location, Republican candidates had several small-donor companies.
The Republicans' new platform, Patriot Pass, will process and cultivate online donations, with Data Trust, the RNC's voter information clearinghouse, joining with Revv, a donation processor that had been used by Trump's presidential campaign.
People involved in the agreement said candidates won't be required to use Patriot Pass.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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