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Actblue: Who's Hot? (September)

by: James L.

Wed Sep 05, 2007 at 9:19 PM EDT


Another month, another tally of how well the top twenty Democratic House challengers are performing on Actblue.com.

State CD Candidate Actblue Total Contributions Avg. Donation
MA 5 Niki Tsongas $195,933 570 $343.74
CO 2 Jared Polis $162,837 422 $385.87
WA 8 Darcy Burner $111,018 3,107 $35.73
ME 1 Chellie Pingree $107,820 273 $394.95
CA 26 Russ Warner $96,214 348 $276.48
IL 10 Dan Seals $78,703 250 $314.81
MO 6 Kay Barnes $75,829 133 $570.14
NY 29 Eric Massa $74,053 904 $81.92
AZ 3 Bob Lord $73,715 190 $387.97
TX 10 Dan Grant $62,080 165 $376.24
NY 26 Jon Powers $56,062 347 $161.56
CA 4 Charlie Brown $49,960 1,168 $42.77
FL 8 Mike Smith $49,925 74 $674.66
NM 1 Martin Heinrich $46,399 249 $186.34
MD 4 Donna Edwards $46,001 828 $55.56
NC 8 Larry Kissell $35,968 362 $99.36
CT 4 Jim Himes $30,452 203 $150.01
MT AL Bill Kennedy $21,016 80 $262.70
IL 14 John Laesch $19,136 285 $67.14
IA 4 Selden Spencer $19,000 126 $150.79

The biggest story of the month, of course, is Darcy Burner's meteoric rise up the charts to the number 3 slot, after riding a wave of donations from the Burn Bush fundraiser (propelled by blogs such as DailyKos, Eschaton, Open Left, MyDD, SSP and other local and national blogs). The impressive display of netroots muscle prompted her primary challenger, Democratic state Senator Rodney Tom, to exit the race and endorse Burner.

You can compare this update with last month's tally here.

Update: Following the suggestion of an astute and loyal reader, I've added another column for the average contribution. It's quite clear that, in terms of small donors, Darcy Burner, Charlie Brown, and Donna Edwards are all basking in the warm glow of people power.
James L. :: Actblue: Who's Hot? (September)
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Actblue: Who's Hot? (September) | 15 comments
How about a column
Showing average donation? I'm rather more impressed with Burner's haul than Tsongas's for that reason.
Good call.
I think I'll do an edit in a few minutes.
[ Parent ]
Mike Smith
Pulling $674.66 per donation is interesting. I'm guessing the demographics of people donating to him through ActBlue differ from other candidates on that list. Not to disparage his donors, it's just that the average donation list is..

Smith - 674.66
Barnes - 570.14
Pingree - 394.95

That's a noticable gap.

Same goes for Kay Barnes, Maybe she's just referring the long-time donors to ActBlue until it's time for a formal fundraiser. ;)

little disappointed in Bill Kennedy
i know Montana is a cheap ad state, but still, $21000?  it'd be nice to have a chance at that seat come 08, and while it will be an uphill race, it's not impossible.  but seriously, step it up billy-boy!

Top ten signs you're an SSPer #1: your favorite song is "Panic At Tedisco" and no one understands what you mean.
Well...
We are talking about Actblue donations here, not all donations.  For some candidates, these figures will amount to a greater share of their total receipts than others.  I'm sure Bill Kennedy is doing a fair share of offline fundraising.  After all, he did come fairly close to matching Rehberg's fundraising total last quarter.
[ Parent ]
Jared Polis
I have been reading blog claims that Jared Polis has been making a series of unimpressive mistakes thus far in his campaign and that some are beginning to question his bona fides as a top flight candidate so I am rather surprised to see him placed so highly on this list.

To quote from ColoradoPols.com "One screw up after anothercreating image of amateur and over-matched campaign shop".  Listing his campaign as essentially moving backwards with both Joan Fitz-Gerald and Will Shafroth as more likely to win the nomination than Polis.

Can anyone put any flesh on what exactly Polis has done//is doing to put his candidacy at risk?  They do not explain what misteps lead them to their conclusion.

I have no dog in the primary race, am merely an interested observer for the record.

"My name's Dr. Multimillionaire and I kicked your ass." -- Rep. Steve Kagen D-WI to Karl Rove

Couple of classic early campaign boo-boos
Had a staffer -- subsequently fired -- speak out of turn about a bunch of Dems he didn't like. And then another thing I can't remember. Something about a fundraising letter that said something that wasn't true. I'm sure you could dig it up.

Big coup yesterday, though. Saw on ColoradoPols.com that he hired Jerome Armstrong as his web outreach guy. That's pretty sweet.

By the way, these lists of ActBlue users are kind of deceptive. Candidates use it in different ways. Some use it as an all-purpose donation channel, so when they ask for max-out contributions they give the donors the ActBlue URL rather than ask for a check. Some even have the page open at fundraisers. So for these candidates, the ActBlue donors are all known entities. For other candidates, the site is more of a real grassroots fundraiser, with a lot of unsolicited (by the campaign) donations. That's why  you see the two distinct categories under "average donation."

[ Parent ]
Very true.
Actblue can be less and less of a "grassroots/netroots" thermometer these days, as campaigns and committees are increasingly embracing the model to channel their traditional big dollar donors to.

Still, it's interesting--not necessarily to gauge netroots support, but to gauge online fundraising success.

[ Parent ]
A great loss
Look how many people we need to make up for the loss of one Norman Hsu!
I'm not the only one smelling troll
right?
[ Parent ]
Borat's just snarky.
He's a good guy.
[ Parent ]
Ok
the combo of the post and the SN was a bit odd. Especially since there is a "Borat-ized Obama" pic out there too.
[ Parent ]
Comedy
is hard.
[ Parent ]
LOL!

[ Parent ]
...but that
makes it all worthwhile!
[ Parent ]
Actblue: Who's Hot? (September) | 15 comments

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