Democratic Donors Withhold Support Amid Party Uncertainty

[Social Media]

 

Following the Democratic Party’s defeat in the 2024 election, donors are holding back funds, frustrated by what they see as a lack of vision and effective strategy. As the party struggles to regroup after Kamala Harris’s loss to Donald Trump, financial backers—from bundlers to grassroots supporters—are expressing deep dissatisfaction with the state of Democratic leadership.  

 

"I’ll be blunt here: The Democratic Party is f‑‑‑ing terrible. Plain and simple," said one major Democratic donor. "In fact, it doesn’t get much worse." Another donor shared a similar sentiment: "They want us to spend money, and for what? For no message, no organization, no forward thinking. … The thing that’s clear to a lot of us is that the party never really learned its lesson in 2016. They worked off the same playbook and the same ineffective strategies and to what end?"  

 

Many donors feel misled by party leaders, particularly during the 2024 campaign cycle. Until the June debate, they had been assured that President Joe Biden was capable of defeating Trump again. However, when Biden’s poor debate performance raised serious concerns about his age and ability, donors felt betrayed. Even after Harris took over as the Democratic nominee, financial backers poured significant resources into a campaign that ultimately relied on outdated strategies. Harris’s loss left morale among Democrats at an all-time low.  

 

"This is worse than 2016," said the first donor. "Our party is so weak and so diminished."  

 

Steve Schale, who directed the pro-Biden super PAC Unite the Country, acknowledged the frustration. While some donor reluctance stems from post-election fatigue, he admitted, "There is genuine frustration."  

 

"I’ve talked to a number of donors who just don’t have a lot of confidence after 2024 and want to see how people are thinking about issues differently," Schale said. "Donors are taking calls, but they’re asking harder questions, which I think is a good thing. Frankly, a lot of donors I’ve talked to don’t think their voice mattered in 2024, so I’ve been doing more listening than talking."  

 

Douglas Wilson, a political consultant in North Carolina, noted that many donors remain hesitant to contribute freely again. With Democrats out of power, their ability to enact meaningful change is limited. According to Wilson, some donors feel that Democratic leaders in Congress are not "fighting back hard enough" for major reforms.  

 

"This is having a trickle-down effect," Wilson said. "Grassroots donors want to see more fight and less text message requests asking for contributions."  

A Democratic National Committee strategist echoed these concerns, saying uncertainty about the party’s direction is discouraging high-level donors from giving. Some believe Democrats cannot defeat Trump-style candidates, prompting them to withhold financial support.  

 

"Folks are saying right now, ‘What’s the Democratic Party to me as an investment?’ I’m hearing from DNC members—they don’t really believe where we’re at right now. They don’t believe that we can counter Trump, so why lose dollars?" the strategist said.  

 

Others argue that Democrats should shift away from relying on major donors and instead focus on small-dollar contributions. Many believe the party needs to rebuild credibility with working-class voters, who have grown increasingly wary of corporate influence. Some moderates even suggest adopting the grassroots fundraising model popularized by Senator Bernie Sanders.  

 

"If corporations and big donors are now rejecting the party, where else can they go for money if they’re not doing it the Bernie Sanders way?" the strategist added.  

 

Schale predicts that Democratic fundraising will look different in future cycles, with more groups raising smaller sums rather than relying on a single super PAC or the DNC. "I believe we will see more groups raising smaller numbers, as donors look to invest in different things," he said. "I think this is healthy, as we learned in 2020 when a ton of groups were at the table."  

 

Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist, believes donors will eventually return to the party as Trump’s policies become more aggressive toward progressive values. However, he acknowledges that many are still processing the emotional aftermath of the campaign.  

 

"For a lot of Democrats, it’s like we had a heartbreak and one way to deal with heartbreak is to curl up on your couch and eat ice cream," Simmons said. "But one way that will help them get over the heartbreak is how infuriating the new guy is."  

 

As the 2026 election cycle approaches, Simmons expects donors to reengage, particularly if the party can present more compelling candidates. "Democrats like to be inspired, so having more inspirational candidates will make that easier," he said.

 

Based on a report by The Hill  2025-02-26

 

 

[thesetat]

5 hours ago, Social Media said:

Democrats like to be inspired, so having more inspirational candidates will make that easier," he said.

In other words. Dems like to see the money pouring in as an incentive. 

5 hours ago, Social Media said:

Many donors feel misled by party leaders, particularly during the 2024 campaign cycle. Until the June debate, they had been assured that President Joe Biden was capable of defeating Trump again. However, when Biden’s poor debate performance raised serious concerns about his age and ability, donors felt betrayed. Even after Harris took over as the Democratic nominee, financial backers poured significant resources into a campaign that ultimately relied on outdated strategies. Harris’s loss left morale among Democrats at an all-time low.  

 The donors have slowly seen they have been lied to consistently by the Dem party. 

 

5 hours ago, Social Media said:

"Folks are saying right now, ‘What’s the Democratic Party to me as an investment?’ I’m hearing from DNC members—they don’t really believe where we’re at right now. They don’t believe that we can counter Trump, so why lose dollars?" the strategist said.  

Obviously, the donors were given something in the past they considered an investment in supporting the Dems. Which is not supposed to happen. Favoritism granted based on the amount of support given to an election is supposed to be illegal. It is no wonder why they now feel their investment failed so why try again when the Dems are still in denial as to why they lost the elections in every part of the US government. The Dems have no say in anything anymore for a reason though. 

[JonnyF]

DEI Harris - the gift that keeps on giving. 😄

 

Thanks Kamala. 

 

[JAG]

Votes not donors.

 

Money, and particular massive donations from corporate sources and the extremely wealthy have utterly corrupted US politics.

 

After all you now have the bizarre (if you believe in democracy) situation where the man who made the biggest donation in the last election is now in government, and believes and behaves as if he is not subject to any accountability!

[BadBouy]

 

[JonnyF]

I'm not sure I'd be donating to a party that spent 1.5 Billion in 15 weeks, much of it wasted on celebrity endorsements and then still got destroyed at the ballot box.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/us/politics/harris-campaign-finances.html

 

[Paul Henry]

The Dems may not need all of these big donors in 2026 as President Musk and Media Man are doing plenty to make even MAGA supporter doubt their last vote. By 2026 the comedy duo will have burnt all their bridges that even Republican nominees may distance themselves from the clowns.

[impulse]

Not to worry.  Stacey Abrams' group has a $2 billion slush fund.  That should get them through the midterms.

 

[spidermike007]

What Biden should admit is that he should have stepped aside after the first term and allowed the Dems to pick a highly qualified candidate who would have had a chance of beating Trump. The secondary aspect of this is that the Democratic party is very broken, they have leaned way too far to the left, they've aligned themselves with the progressives and the extreme left, and the ridiculous woke movement, and that turned off millions of centrist voters. As James Carville said we should just wait, allow the Republicans to implode on their own which they will, as a result of so much inane and ridiculous policy from Trump and then go on the attack. 

 

Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is retreat on the immediate battlefield — and advance in another direction.

 

It won’t take long: public support for this administration will fall through the floorboard. It’s already happening: Just over a month in, the president’s approval has already sunk underwater in two new polls. The people did not vote for the Department of Education to be obliterated — they voted for lower prices for eggs and milk. Democrats, let the Republicans’ own undertow drag them away.

 

At this rate, the Trump honeymoon will be over best case by Memorial Day but more likely in the next 30 days.

 

I don't like Trump, nor do I have a nanogram of respect for the man, but I understand why people voted for him. However, they are in for a major wake up call. He is most definitely not the man that they thought he was. 

 

[spidermike007]

The Republican Party is all too often effective at campaigning and winning elections, but there’s another fact about it that a lot of Americans forget: The Republican Party flat out sucks at governing. Even Tucker Carlson agrees with this. For all the huffing and puffing on the campaign trail in 2016, the first Trump administration largely amounted to tax cuts for the wealthy, 500 miles of a border wall and a destructive pandemic gone viral. George W. Bush got us into a harebrained war in Iraq and then tried to privatize Social Security while letting our financial system drive smack into the Great Recession. And George H.W. Bush governed his way into a one-term presidency because of the economy.

 

For round two in office, instead of prioritizing the problems he campaigned on — public safety, immigration and the border, and most of all the economy — President Trump is hellbent on

dismantling the federal government. To accomplish this, he has put his faith in the most incompetent cabinet in modern history: a health and human services secretary who is already targeting federal vaccination efforts and dumped a bear carcass in Central Park as a fun prank at age 60; a director of national intelligence who was devoted to an allegedly abusive yoga-centered cult; a former WWE tycoon turned head of Department of Education; and a former cable news talking head as defense secretary. Which will result in one clear thing: disorder. There will probably be more enormous tax cuts for the wealthy and Medicaid cuts hitting a lot of other people, but there is nothing the American public despises more than disorder and a broken economy.

[Purdey]

American politics is money politics, no matter which party. The missing part was the clear policies that voters find attractive. Like, "I will lower the price of groceries on day one."

[frank83628]

3 hours ago, JonnyF said:

I'm not sure I'd be donating to a party that spent 1.5 Billion in 15 weeks, much of it wasted on celebrity endorsements and then still got destroyed at the ballot box.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/us/politics/harris-campaign-finances.html

 

And was 200k in the red

[frank83628]

The dems are FUBAR...  Harris campaigned on no tax on tips after copying it from The Don, yet they all voted against it... flip flop... literally have no morals or loyality whatsoever.

No wonder the donors are skeptical and holdin back.. who do they even have to put forward?

What a spectacular fail, they had 90% of the MSM lying and covering for them, a team of fake fact checkers lying and misleading the public, used lawfare against their opponent... and still lost everything...

[mrwebb8825]

On 2/25/2025 at 7:20 PM, JAG said:

Votes not donors.

 

Money, and particular massive donations from corporate sources and the extremely wealthy have utterly corrupted US politics.

 

After all you now have the bizarre (if you believe in democracy) situation where the man who made the biggest donation in the last election is now in government, and believes and behaves as if he is not subject to any accountability!

To Democrats

Contributor	Democrats	Republicans	Rank
Bloomberg, Michael R.	$43,453,634	$1,000,000	1
Moskovitz, Dustin & Cari	$38,785,700	$0	2
Eychaner, Fred	$31,057,700	$0	3
Simons, James H. & Marilyn	$30,757,103	$0	4
Hoffman, Reid Garrett	$26,659,700	$400,000	5
Mandel, Stephen F. Jr. & Susan Z.	$22,934,500	$63,200	6
Simon, Deborah J.	$19,830,960	$0	7
Jordan, Wayne D.	$14,488,811	$0	8
Larsen, Christian	$13,442,479	$6,600	9
Heising, Elizabeth D.	$12,638,350	$6,600	10

To Republicans

 

Contributor	Democrats	Republicans	Rank
Mellon, Timothy	-$2,900	$172,042,500	1
Uihlein, Richard & Elizabeth A.	$0	$137,775,196	2
Adelson, Sheldon G. & Miriam O.	$0	$136,855,700	3
Musk, Elon	$0	$133,038,600	4
Griffin, Kenneth C.	$0	$101,405,484	5
Yass, Jeffrey S. & Janine	$1,500	$96,122,180	6
Singer, Paul E.	$0	$59,299,100	7
Schwarzman, Stephen A.	$0	$39,103,046	8
Dunn, Timothy M.	$0	$35,415,200	9
Bigelow, Rob	$0	$34,991,500	10