Daily Archives: July 29, 2022

All Hail the Queen

Yes, it’s Photoshopped.

But seriously, Becca Balint’s latest campaign finance report is a wonder to behold. And it couldn’t be more different than Molly Gray’s.

The most dramatic number isn’t the bottom line, in which Balint outraised her Democratic rival in the race for Congress between July 1-20 by a margin of $145,000 to $65,000, putting her narrowly in the lead for the campaign to date. (And leaving her at a disadvantage in cash on hand, thanks to Gray’s lower spending.)

But that pales in comparison to the margin in unique donors, where Balint outguns Gray by basically a 12-to-1 margin.

Yes, I said twelve to one.

Balint’s FEC filing includes 6,548 “itemized receipts.” Gray’s: 532*. Balint’s campaign was absolutely flooded with donations in that 20-day period.

*Note: When a donor gives via ActBlue, the donation is credited to the donor AND to ActBlue. It’s counted once in the dollar total, but listed twice. There are a lot of these; many donors use ActBlue. So the number of donors is much lower than the number of “itemized receipts.” but that’s true for both campaigns. If Balint’s actual number of unique donors is 30-40% lower than 6,548, the same is true for Gray. The ratio remains more or less the same. Also, even if Balint “only” got donations from, say, 4,000 people in 20 days, that’s still incredible.

Balint’s list of donors is a remarkable thing. The vast majority of donors gave less than $100, and most of those gave $50 or less. Quite a few gave less than $10. There were very few large-dollar donations.

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