Dem
51
GOP
49
Many people get an e-mail asking for a political donation for a candidate they like and make one, thinking that will be the end of it. Little do they know that they signed up for a lifetime of political spam. Some of them are discovering this and they do not like it one bit. Only a relatively small number of years ago, asking for money by text message or email was an innovation. Now people are overwhelmed with requests, so the rate of return is dropping precipitously. Candidates respond to that by asking more often, which reduces the rate of return even more. It is a vicious circle in the wrong direction.
Around 2000, campaign managers thought of raising small amounts of money from large numbers of donors as a way to counter large amounts of money from small numbers of donors. Campaigns sell or rent their donor lists, leading to more and more requests for money going to the same pool of people. In fact, fundraising has now outpaced everything else to become the primary form of voter contact. Even party activists are starting to complain about how many requests for money they are getting. Campaigns are so desperate for cash that they are starting to request it from independents and even members of the other party, which causes yields to drop even more. But because e-mail and text messages are so cheap, if even a fraction of one percent donate, it is a net win for the campaign—but a net loss for the people bombarded with requests. Despite the relatively low cost of text messages and emails, in 2022, fundraising was about 7.5% of total campaign spending, up from 6.7% in 2020.
The constant stream of requests is starting to be counterproductive. In one recent survey, a quarter of the respondents said that were not going to donate because they did not want to get on more lists and get even more requests. One strategist made the point that constantly bombarding people with messages they don't want and getting them angry is not a great formula for getting them to vote for you, which is the ultimate goal, after all.
One might think that the negative feedback from donors and the decreasing rate of return might cause campaigns to change tactics, but as long as a mass mailing turns a net profit, the incentive to continue will still be there. Some people have suggested that campaigns could stop asking for money five times a day and instead ask people to volunteer to go door knocking, do phone banking, put up yard signs, and other things.
There are two ways people can donate to a campaign and not get spammed forever after. One is go get a new e-mail address at Gmail, Yahoo, or elsewhere, like spamreceiver314159265@gmail.com. Use that only for giving donations to campaigns. If you need to verify it the first time you give, do so. Then ignore it except once every 6 months log in and delete all the messages without looking at them. The second way is to donate by mailing a check without putting a return address on the envelope. (V)