If he can harness anti-elite sentiment in the party’s small donor base to weather the post-debate turmoil, he would join the ranks of more populist politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia. Those lawmakers have generated waves of small-donor money by appeal to perceived abuse due to the actions of the establishment.
“We know that high-visibility, high-intensity moments can trigger an immediate flood of small donations, and that anger, resentment and outrage are powerful motivators in politics, including for small donors,” said Richard H. Pildes, a law professor at New York University who has studied the role of small donors in politics. fueling political polarizationsaid in an email. “It’s also possible we’re seeing a conflict between the Democratic Party base, which wants Biden to stay, and the more ‘elite’ faction of big donors, who want an alternative.”
Small donors have long been valued in politics as an indicator of grassroots enthusiasm, and as a sustainable source of money, because they can give repeatedly without hitting contribution limits. Advances in online, email, and mobile fundraising applications have enabled campaigns to use large events as opportunities to solicit contributions from supporters with average means.
Small donors typically give “from the heart,” says Eitan D. Hersh, a professor of political science at Tufts University. investigated the motives of political donors“The larger donors are donating more from the head than from the heart,” he said, predicting that Biden’s campaign would experience “a withdrawal of large donors and therefore a relative gain relative to small donors.”
Carol L. Hamilton, a Los Angeles attorney who serves on Biden’s national finance committee, said he had many supporters who “may not be million-dollar or hundreds of thousands-dollar donors, but they care and they go out and vote, and now they’re showing that they support our president by giving a few dollars — $5, $25, whatever they give — to make a statement that they think this president should stay in the race.”
