There is a fascinating piece in Salon about current campaign finance patterns that spells bad news for Obama and mediocre news for his likely challenger Mitt Romney. The number of donors, if not the overall amount being raised, for President Obama has gone down considerably this year and is not likely to change in the coming months. While the president raised over $70 million in the last fundraising cycle this year, that was bolstered by money from the Democratic National Committee. Stories have circulated throughout the year of low attendance fundraisers for Obama and smaller crowds.
It has to be disconcerting to the president that fewer small donors want to open their wallets and support his campaign. Here’s the catch however. It does not appear that much of the money is changing parties as much as the money is simply not being spent. While some voters and businesses in swing states have sent checks to Romney over Obama, this time the larger reason for the drop off is because Obama donors simply aren’t giving again. So, even though recent polls show that 4 in 5 Obama voters in 2008 plan on voting for him again, their enthusiasm is dropping much faster than national unemployment numbers. Maybe that’s part of Obama’s problem.
This article originally appeared at Politic365.com.
