President Joe Biden is looking to separate himself from the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) marquee fundraising platform to save money on processing fees.
If Biden decides to split with the platform, ActBlue, it could majorly impact down-the-ballot Democrat campaigns and the DNC’s grip on the party’s money flow, a key ingredient to power in Washington, DC.
ActBlue facilitates online fundraising in local, state, and federal races and is an essential tool to battle Republicans. So far, ActBlue has raised more than $12.6 million since 2004, the platform’s website says. Last quarter, it raised $283 million from 1.8 million donors for Democrat campaigns and far-left organizations, the platform claims.
Biden is considering a variety of competitors to ActBlue or using a blend of different platforms, such as those run by NGP VAN and Action Network, a Biden official granted anonymity told Politico on Wednesday.
“The Biden campaign is testing the impact of different payment processors on our fundraising,” the official said. “While we are exploring, ActBlue remains an important vendor to the campaign.”
ActBlue fees are higher than competitors and do not work as well as WinRed, the Republican donation platform, according to Kenneth Pennington, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) former digital director during his 2016 presidential campaign.
“ActBlue has a near-monopoly on [donation] processing in the space,” Pennington said. “And for many years, they’ve built that monopoly mostly because they have the largest database of saved credit cards from their users.”
“If you’re a down-ballot campaign, there are going to be millions of new donors saving their credit card information on an ActBlue competitor, which makes that more of an option for you in terms of switching,” Pennington said, noting the use of additional platforms could lead to “more competitive infrastructure and tools” for Democrats.
Follow Wendell Husebø on “X” @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.