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Showing Fired-Up Small-Dollar Donors, Democratic Fundraising Platform ActBlue Processed Record $420 Million So Far This Year

An Election Countdown Calendar hangs at ActBlue in Somerville, Mass. on Nov. 13, 2018. ActBlue released on Wednesday figures on second quarter fundraising, showing that 3.3 million supporters used the platform to give over $420 million so far this year to Democratic campaigns and organizations. (Photo: Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Showing Fired-Up Small-Dollar Donors, Democratic Fundraising Platform ActBlue Processed Record $420 Million So Far This Year

"We're seeing millions of donors, record-breaking totals every quarter, and a rapidly-growing small-dollar army that is ready to help Democrats take back everything from school boards to the White House next year."

Online fundraising platform ActBlue said Wednesday that 3.3 million supporters gave over $420 million so far this year to roughly 8,700 Democratic campaigns and left-leaning organizations, a haul it said was a testament to the surging "small dollar army" of donors.

The average donation for the first two quarters of 2019 was $32.29.

In the second quarter alone, said ActBlue, 2.4 million donors gave $246 million to Democratic campaigns and groups. By comparison, in the second quarter of 2017--a cycle that saw noted progressive victories--donors gave $137 million.

In just the last 10 days of the second quarter of 2019, 1.1 million donors utlitized the platform to make contributions. The last day of the cycle, June 30, was a record-breaking day, said ActBlue. That's when donors made the largest number of contributions in a single day--390,000.

"Small-dollar donors are already showing that they will be a force in races up and down the ballot this cycle," said ActBlue executive director Erin Hill in a statement. "These numbers show that there is incredible energy among the grassroots already, and we're still more than a year out from Election Day."

Focusing on down-ballot races, ActBlue's Emily Dong and Zoe Howard wrote in a blog post Wednesday:

[donors have] supported state legislative candidates with unparalleled energy, raising twice as much money in the first two quarters of 2019 compared to Q1 and Q2 '17 to win back and protect crucial seats that will determine our voting maps for the next decade. At the local level, donors gave more than three times as much money to local candidates and groups so far this cycle compared to this point in the 2018 cycle.

ActBlue also highlighted some of the key takeaways from the fundraising figures on Twitter:

"We're seeing millions of donors, record-breaking totals every quarter, and a rapidly-growing small-dollar army," said ActBlue's Hill, "that is ready to help Democrats take back everything from school boards to the White House next year."

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