Democrats Make Surprise Move To Squeeze And Narrow Campaign Field

The Democratic Party’s directive to establish a 130,000 donor quota to qualify presidential candidates for participation in the third primary debate is raising concerns among campaign officials.

Two-thirds of the 2020 Democratic field might not qualify to participate in the September debate due to the measure, The New York Times reported Thursday, citing officials from multiple campaigns. The threshold doubles the amount of donors needed to participate in the two preceding debates scheduled for June and July, which is set at 65,000 donors.

Several campaign officials said the party’s donor quantity requirements are “skewing the way they allocate resources,” according to The NYT. Campaign officials said the mandates are forcing them to choose to funnel money into increasingly expensive Facebook ads instead of investing in their staff.

Technically, no one has qualified yet since only polls starting on June 28 count. And there will probably be an unexpected surge or two.

But basically we’re looking at 8 candidates who are *fairly* safe, Yang and Castro are probably tossups, everyone else has work to do. pic.twitter.com/dn3uxEaE23

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 30, 2019

Four candidates publicly reported having 130,000 or more donors, including Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, with both Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke likely in the ballpark of that mark, The NYT reported.

Digital campaign strategists said the measure could bring about “poor habits,” such as spamming supporters in a race to accrue countless small donors.

“Let the irresponsible email acquisition and direct-to-donate spending continue! Build national email lists while drowning out U.S. Senate and House campaigns!” Democratic digital strategist Ryan Alexander tweeted.

Let the irresponsible email acquisition and direct-to-donate spending continue! Build national email lists while drowning out U.S. Senate and House campaigns!

“Must also receive donations from at least 130,000 unique donors in at least 20 states.”https://t.co/iO1EpzCbXn

— Ryan Alexander (@RyanAlexander) May 29, 2019

Betsy Hoover, another strategist, said that fewer high-profile candidates will have to make a hard choice where to spend their limited resources.

“For second- or third-tier candidates, they have to choose: They can either spend their money achieving these metrics, or invest in programs on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Very few are going to be able to do both,” she said.

Democratic 2020 candidate Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado critiqued the rules Wednesday at an event in New Hampshire.

“When you have people competing for donations by creating viral moments that have nothing to do with governing our country or ideas that will move us forward, I think that’s challenging for our democracy,” he said.

“I certainly don’t think the D.N.C. should be favoring national fund-raising and cable TV over decisions by voters in early states,” he continued.

Democratic Party officials said the measures are necessary at this time, since a viable presidential candidate will require “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of donors to win a general election,” according to the NY Times.

DNC chairman Tom Perez is reportedly considering a lottery system to decide which order candidates will debate each other in for the first debate set for June.

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