Pablo Luna
It should come as no surprise that campaigning for a political office can be extremely expensive. Having said that, the actual cost depends on the office a candidate is running for, therefore, running for city councilman would be a lot less costly than running for mayor, state senator, or the ultimate campaign, president. To be more specific, to even begin campaigning for president, someone who wants to throw their hat in the ring needs to have raised at least $5,000 in each of the 20 states. That’s $100,000! So, how do politicians raise that kind of money? That’s a very good question. Let’s try to answer it.
Rallies
The first thought that comes to mind is rallied. We have all heard of those sometimes highly controversial rallies where supporters vie with opponents and things can get pretty heated. Actually, that can be a good thing when you think about it. The more you are opposed, the stronger your support will be. That’s the same in love and war. Imagine how much money is brought in by supporters eager to back the candidate who is being publicly contested. But wait! That’s not the biggest way to raise campaign funds. Let’s continue.
Text Messaging
Believe it or not, conservative fundraising over the past several years has brought in an amazing amount of donations with mass text messaging campaigns! Unless you are talking about the mega-millions of dollars written off by major corporations, conservative fundraising through Tatango’s WinRed platform was a major source of donations from supporters throughout the United States. That’s how conservatives do it, and that’s largely how the candidate in 2016 gained such rapid support. Many believe that it was the economic downswing of the pandemic that interfered with the 2020 campaign, but those days are behind us and 2024 is just around the corner.
Social Events
Then there are social events like those hosted at universities and other organizations around the country. Funds are raised by charging per plate at dinners, for example. Sometimes tickets are sold to the event where the keynote speaker is a campaigning politician. Social events can also bring in the bucks.
Social Media
We won’t mention Twitter here, or did we just? At any rate, everyone knows how much support our previous president garnered with his abundance of Tweets, so there isn’t much to figure out. Social media can be highly effective as well.
Then there’s email marketing. Much like an SMS marketing campaign to raise funds for a political campaign, supporters are asked to sign up for email updates to follow their candidates. Within those emails, there are often requests for financial support.
Perhaps the reason why SMS text messaging campaigns are so highly effective is that they go direct to the supporter and are short and sweet. Few people out there in the workplace have the time to read a lengthy email, so a few lines beeping or buzzing as they hit your phone is easy to access no matter where you are. In short, those are the most common and effective ways that politicians raise campaign funds.
