How Downballot Republicans Won Out With Small-Dollar Donors

As President Donald Trump’s campaign struggled last year to rake in small-dollar contributions, many downballot Republicans continued to see money pour in from those very donors.

The secret, according to one Republican digital fundraiser: fewer texts and emails, more personalized messaging and targeting a larger audience.

“A lot of the downballot candidates did a really good job at being creative in a cycle where Trump was the dominant factor,” said Mike Hahn, the president of digital strategy and operations at Republican consulting firm Frontline Strategies. “I think, out of the Trump campaign, we saw a lot of the same stuff over and over again. And it’s almost as though they took for granted that they’re going to get the donations, no matter what.”

“With the downballot candidates – people got a lot smarter at the content that they needed to put out,” he added. 

Trump, a one-time powerhouse in small-dollar fundraising, saw those contributions plummet last year. Fewer than a third of his campaign contributions in 2024 came from donors giving less than $200, according to the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets. 

In turn, the president’s campaign was forced to rely more heavily on wealthy donors and outside groups to keep pace with former Vice President Kamala Harris’ fundraising operation. 

Hahn said the Trump team’s deficit was due to multiple factors. The campaign peppered supporters with texts and emails – in some cases several times per day – leading to fatigue among many small-dollar donors with messaging. At the same time, he said, many small-dollar donors began to feel as if they had given Trump enough money over his nearly 10 years on the political stage.

“I think you had some people saying: ‘What have I gotten for donating over the last 10 years? Just more asks,” Hahn said.

How Downballot Republicans Succeeded

Hahn said that downballot Republicans found success with small-dollar donors by doing two things, in particular: introductions to voters explaining who they are and why they’re running for office, and broadening their outreach to potential donors outside of their districts and states.

“We had one candidate, who got kicked out of the military for not taking the COVID vaccine,” Hahn said. “He raised $100,000 in two days just from telling that story: ‘I want to win because I saw government tyranny at its finest. Help me win.’ ”

Hahn also pointed to Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., as a prime example of a downballot Republican who saw a fundraising windfall by courting donors nationally. He said that candidates and campaigns should “get out of this mindset of only raising money in their district or their state.”

“You’re a member of Congress. You vote on things that affect the entire country,” Hahn said. “I think a lot of campaigns this cycle convinced their candidates to go national with messaging.” 

Those takeaways could end up being more important than ever in 2026, when Trump won’t be on the ballot. Another Republican fundraiser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the post-Trump fundraising landscape, said that Republican candidates are going to need to find ways to keep small-dollar donors engaged without the prospect of another Trump campaign.

“On one hand, we won’t be competing with as big of a figure as Trump. He won’t be sucking up all the oxygen in the room” the fundraiser said. “But that’s also going to mean being creative and using the data we have to craft better messages.”

“The good news is we have that data now,” the fundraiser added. “We know which donors care about which issues. We just have to put that into practice.”