Political Fundraising in the Era of Impeachment

Updated February 2020

With the Trump impeachment proceedings having saturated the news cycle until early February 2020, there is a little reported metric that would suggest that the Republicans, with or without Donald Trump, are setting themselves up for a hard-fought race in November 2020.

According to Open Secrets, the repository of the election fundraising database, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has had a very successful fund-raising campaign heading into the 2020 election as shown here:

As you can see, the RNC has $61.38 million in cash on hand that can be spent to convince voters to vote Republican in 2020.  As well, according to reports in the media, the RNC brought in $25.3 million in October 2019 alone, suggesting that there could be a voter backlash against the impeachment proceedings.  

By way of comparison, here is a summary showing how much the RNC raised during the 2016 presidential election cycle:

Here is list of the top contributors to the RNC thus far in the 2020 election cycle:

Here is a list of the top industries contributing to the RNC:

Here is a list of the top contributors to the RNC by state, metropolitan area and zip code:

Here is a list of the million dollar plus recipients of the RNC's funds:

According to the Federal Election Committee, the RNC had no debts at the end of October 2019 as shown here:

Let's look at the Democratic National Committee.  According to Open Secrets, the Democrats have raised far less money than their Republican counterparts as shown here:

The RNC currently has nearly seven times as much cash on hand as the DNC.

Here is a summary showing how much the DNC raised during the 2016 presidential election cycle:

Here is list of the top contributors to the DNC thus far in the 2020 election cycle:

Here is a list of the top industries contributing to the DNC:

Here is a list of the top contributors to the DNC by state, metropolitan area and zip code:

Here is a list of the million dollar plus recipients of the DNC's funds:

According to the Federal Election Committee, in contrast to the RNC, the DNC had significant debts at the end of October 2019 as shown here:

Let's close with a look at how much Donald Trump has raised so far in the 2020 election cycle:

It is interesting to note that the Trump campaign has raised $79.376 million from small individual contributors who have contributed less than $200.  This represents at least 397,000 individual voters who are willing to back Donald Trump in spite of the recent impeachment proceedings.  In combination with the RNC, the Trump campaign has raised $378.9 million, a rather massive war chest at this point in the election cycle.

While the DNC will likely see donations to the party increase significantly once the dust settles and the party's final presidential candidate is selected, the current data suggests that the Trump campaign is in a good financial position to fight the Democrats in November 2020.  As well all know, money is all important in American politics and right now, it appears that a significant number of voters believe that Donald Trump has the "right stuff" despite what Democrats in Congress may have to say about him.