Today, Daily Kos announced the first disbursement of “nominee funds” raised through ActBlue after Tuesday’s Texas primary elections. The Democratic nominee in Texas’ U.S. Senate race will receive his share of the over $225,000 from over 87,000 individual, low-dollar grassroots donations the Daily Kos community has raised to oust Republicans in this race and in Texas House Districts 7, 23, and 32. The remainder of the funds will be released to the winners of the Democratic primary runoffs in the House races.
“The Daily Kos community has raised over $2 million to oust Republicans from 41 U.S. House seats and three U.S. Senate seats since first launching our effort around the ActBlue nominee funds in May,” said Carolyn Fiddler, Daily Kos Political Editor and Strategic Communications Advisor. “Daily Kos identified an opportunity early in the cycle to leverage the strength of grassroots, low-dollar fundraising around evicting Republicans from seats Democrats have a strong opportunity to flip this November, and we’re thrilled to see the first funds from this effort go to support a Democratic challenger.”
“After the 2016 election, Daily Kos saw the opportunity to use ActBlue's nominee funds to organize their community and raise millions for Democratic nominees to help ensure victory in 2018,” said ActBlue Executive Director Erin Hill. “All that hard work over the last year means that candidates in Texas will receive a huge boost from the Daily Kos community to start their general campaigns off right.”
Daily Kos has led the way in supporting Democrats across the country this cycle, raising over $5.1 million for candidates in small, grassroots donations in 2017-2018. We will continue to analyze and invest in key races nationwide.