We’ve all been bombarded with those histrionic text messages making over-the-top requests for donations, but they’re more than just annoying—there are hidden victims of these hyper-aggressive fundraising practices.
On this week’s episode of The Downballot podcast, Stanford political scientist Adam Bonica discusses his deep investigation into the ways Democratic organizations and “spam PACs” are deploying these frenzied messages, which end up exploiting many senior citizens—some of whom have responded by donating literally thousands of times.
But the harm runs even deeper. As Bonica explains, even as these techniques rake in huge sums from the elderly, they’ve alienated many other donors. That’s created a serious risk of a broader crash in grassroots fundraising that could seriously undermine Democrats, something Republicans have already experienced thanks to their own slash-and-burn approach.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap Tuesday’s primaries in Massachusetts and preview next week’s contests in New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Finally, they make sense of the chaos in Alaska, where a deadline for candidates to drop out following the state’s unique top-four primary prompted a reshuffle of the November ballot in all of the top races.
