Sinema’s grassroots donor pool dries up

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema had her best fundraising quarter since her election, bringing in nearly $1.6 million in the last three months of 2021 as she positioned herself as one of her party’s high-profile contrarians in the Senate.

But underneath that record number is a starker reality for the Arizona Democrat. Sinema is increasingly leaning on corporate PACs and big donations to fill her campaign coffers. The Democratic grassroots fundraising world has largely abandoned her.

Just over 2 percent of Sinema’s fundraising haul this quarter — $33,983 — came from small-dollar donors, or those who have given an aggregated total this election cycle of $200 or less. By comparison, the PAC “Change for Arizona 2024” — which is preparing its attempt to unseat Sinema with a more progressive candidate — reported $180,000 in small-dollar unitemized contributions during the last quarter of 2021.

The numbers revealed in a filing with the Federal Election Commission on Monday are the continuation of a recent trend for Sinema, who has seen her small-dollar donations grind to a near halt. In 2020 — an election year, though one where she was not on the ballot — Sinema drew between $60,000 and $141,000 from grassroots supporters each quarter. In 2021, that number ranged between $31,000 and $40,000. Over those four quarters of 2021, the percentage of donations that have been unitemized has gone from 10.2 percent to 3.6 percent to 2.8 percent to 2.1 percent.

Though she won’t go before voters for a few years, the waning of grassroots support could prove dangerous for her reelection campaign, when a primary challenge is all but certain. At a minimum, it will likely force Sinema to lean more heavily on the pool of big-money donors to help fund a bid, should she choose to make one.

But it’s not entirely clear how big that pool is. A host of big-dollar donors threatened to pull their support for the senator if she continued to stand in the way of supporting rules changes in her chamber as a means of passing voting rights legislation. The pro-abortion rights PAC EMILY’s List, which has heavily funded Sinema, also said it would not continue to support Sinema if she blocked the legislation. Without naming the senator, the pro-abortion rights group NARAL said the same.

In response to POLITICO’s inquiry about Monday’s filing, a spokesperson for the Sinema campaign said that “nearly 85 percent of contributions came from individuals” and “nearly 75 percent of contributions were less than $100.”

One campaign fundraising official noted that it’s commonplace for candidates to have that latter number in the 90s percentile range, as donors can give in multiple increments.

The drop-off in Sinema’s small-dollar donations did not appear to be for lack of trying to recruit financial support from that pool. During the last quarter, her campaign spent $44,500 on advertising, list acquisition and digital fundraising consulting with “Authentic Campaigns Inc.” — roughly $10,500 more than it raised from small-dollar donors.

Sinema’s leadership PAC, “Getting Stuff Done,” reported no unitemized donations in its $477,500 haul this quarter.

The drop-off has coincided with Sinema’s elevation as an obstacle for the Biden administration on key agenda items. Though the senator has been a reliable Democratic vote on the vast majority of her party’s legislation, she has taken stances against key components: the raising of the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the increases of personal or corporate tax levels, and the changing of the filibuster rules. In response, political action committees across industries have thrown thousands at her campaign making up for the drop in grassroots giving.

Among those donor groups with the most at stake before Congress, this quarter, Sinema received $3,500 from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and $3,000 from Johnson & Johnson’s PAC, which have been fighting drug pricing provisions championed by Democrats in the Build Back Better Act. She also received $2,500 from the American Petroleum Institute, $5,000 from the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, $3,000 from the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, and $2,500 from ExxonMobil. In November, she also received $2,000 from the private corrections company, CoreCivic (President Joe Biden has ordered the Department of Justice not to renew contracts with private prison companies).

Her campaign has also seen some interest from Republicans. Shawn Smeallie, a GOP lobbyist, gave $2,000 this quarter, and Jeffrey MacKinnon, another Republican lobbyist, gave $1,000. Some Republican donors also gave to her campaign, including Harlan R. Crow, who gave $5,800 (and was refunded for an excess contribution this cycle), and Ken Langone, who gave $5,800.

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