By Roger Caldwell
The Democrats are struggling in the 2020 presidential campaign. Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the pack of Democratic candidates, but he is not really a Democrat, so the campaign is really confusing. Senator Sanders is an independent, and a socialist, and with the label of socialist, he will probably lose to President Trump.
Sanders is also a progressive, and an advocate of Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and much higher taxes on upper incomes. “The discourse surrounding Bernie Sanders’s campaign has a familiar ring, ‘Stop Sanders’ Democrats Are Agonizing Over His Momentum”, reads a headline in The New York Times this week.
As the Democrats are fighting with their own crisis, the Republicans are now the Party of Trump. President Trump’s support comes from the majority of small donations from under $200. Many Americans hate Trump, but 50% of Americans love him, and they will vote for him another term. Trump has learnt how to create bait, and it attracts a crowd, and his rallies are usually 15,000 to 20,000 strong.
At Trump’s rallies, he is also attracting Democrats, because he uses bait and data to study their habits.
“Quickly after his rally Tuesday in New Hampshire, his media team announced that they received over 50,000 new pieces of data (leads) and 24% of them were from registered Democrats. They were focused like a laser on that number because they only lost the state by 2,000 votes in 2016. Their data also shows if you go to a rally there is an 80% chance of you voting on Election Day,” says Darin Spindler – of Magnetic Marketing.
If the Democrats are going to win in 2020, they must study and watch what Trump’s team is doing in their campaign. The Republicans are not fighting amongst themselves, they are organizing and collaborating.
“The data is also showing if you go to a rally and you donate a dollar ($1) – there is a 90% chance you will vote on Election Day. Just think, a $1 commitment increases the likelihood of you voting by 10%,” says Darin Spindler.
Trump’s rallies are very important to his campaign and he is expanding his voter base. “President Trump’s reelection campaign raked in $46 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 in support of the president’s bid for a second term, the Trump campaign announced last month,” says Melissa Quinn –of CBS News.
“The Trump campaign raised $143 million total in 2019 and the year with $102.7 million in cash-on-hand. The $46 million brought in for the last three months of the year represented donations made only to the campaign and does not include money raised by the Republican National Committee or other joint fundraising committees, said the campaigns,” says Melissa Quinn.
The Democrats have their work cut out for this election, because the billionaires in the Republican Party are just starting to make their donation. As Michael Bloomberg begins to move up on the list of Democratic candidates many Democrats are happy, because he is worth $60 billion dollars. In 2020, it seems that this presidential election will be centered on the billionaires.
This is unprecedented, but elections have always been about who has the most money. When a candidate can spend 2 or 3 billion dollars on a campaign the leadership does not know what to say.
The Republicans will raise billions of dollars in the 2020 election. If the Democrats are going to challenge the Republicans, they must also raise billions of dollars to compete.
