WASHINGTON — Even with low approval ratings and an uncertain path to re-election, President Barack Obama is exceeding expectations in one area: His campaign is doing far better at attracting grassroots financial support this year than his GOP rivals’ or his own historic effort in 2008, according to new contribution data.
The sheer scale of small donations, totaling $56 million for Obama and his party, has surprised many Democratic strategists and fundraisers, who feared that a sour economy would make it difficult for Obama to raise money from disenchanted and cash- strapped voters.
A Washington Post analysis shows that nearly half of his campaign contributions and a quarter of the money he has raised for the Democratic Party have come from donors giving less than $200. That’s much higher than it was four years ago and far beyond what the best-funded Republicans have managed.
Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, the leading GOP fundraisers, have embraced a traditional approach, focusing on big-dollar contributors who can fill the coffers without the high overhead costs of a campaign targeting small donations, the analysis shows.
Obama’s grass-roots-oriented campaign is rooted in the belief that donors, even if they give only a few dollars, are more committed to their candidate than those who have not written a check.
“The number of small donations shows who it is that supports this president and who put him there,” said Katherine Hahn, a self-described “mom and artist” from Evergreen, who gives Obama $25 a month. “It wasn’t ‘the powers that be’ so much as it was people like me.”
But relying on donors of modest means could limit the fundraising ability of the president, who is showing signs of struggling to bring in big donations. Fewer than 6,000 contributors had given Obama $2,500 or more through September.
Numbers
45 percent Portion of the $90 million raised by Obama’s re-election campaign from April through September that came from donors who each gave less than $200 in aggregate donations, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission records
1 million+ Donors who have given to Obama’s re-election campaign so far this year. Half had never given to him before.
