Supreme Court fight jolts battle for the Senate

After Ginsburg’s death, campaigns and outside groups were quick to blast out fundraising emails, stressing a new sense of urgency.

“The Senate is a toss-up, our Supreme Court is on the line, and GOP megadonors are POURING money into attacks against every Democrat who threatens McConnell's majority,” read a fundraising pitch Monday morning from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Crooked Media’s “Get Mitch or Die Trying Fund,” which splits contributions among 14 Democratic Senate candidates, saw $18 million come in after Ginsburg’s death through Monday morning. That’s more than five times what the effort had previously raised since it launched in July 2019, and included nearly 185,000 donors who gave for the first time. 

“It was the only thing that made me feel good that night, to know that it wasn’t just a group of people who work at a progressive media company who were feeling this anxiousness and need to do something,” said Shaniqua McClendon, political director of Crooked Media, a company founded by former Obama staffers. “The numbers just would not stop moving.”

ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, said over the weekend that small-dollar donors had given a record $100 million through the site as of Sunday morning. ActBlue did not offer details about whether any of the contributors were first-time donors or repeat donors newly energized to give again.