Al Franken Is Running a People-powered Grassroots 2014 Campaign

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Senator Al Franken’s (D-MN) office released his 4th quarter fundraising numbers today, and they show that Franken is truly running a grassroots operation, just like his office claims.

This past quarter the Democratic Senator raised $2.1 million, with 97% of the contributions $100.00 or less. “We’ve got a tough fight ahead of us and these numbers demonstrate that Al is building an incredibly strong, people-powered grassroots campaign,” said Campaign Manager Matt Burgess. “It’s clear that people believe in Al’s Minnesota commonsense approach to getting things done and his middle-class values he fights for every day.”

Q4:
· Al received contributions from 34,430 donors during the fourth quarter.
· 97% of the contributions Al received this past quarter were $100 or less.
· 13,322 people decided that they believed in Al enough to make donations to his campaign for the very first time in the fourth quarter.

2013:
· In 2013, Al received contributions from 96,719 donors.
· 97% of the contributions Al received this year were $100 or less.
· 57,582 people decided that they believed in Al enough to make donations to his campaign for the very first time in 2013.

Open Secrets reported in September for up to the previous quarter that the top five donors to the Senator were DLA Piper, Susman Godfrey Llp, Cooney & Conway, Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP, and Thornton & Naumes. The top five industries (where donors were employed) that donated to Senator Franken were lawyers/law firms, retired people, TVs/Music/Movies, Securities & Investment, and Real Estate.

In October, the Senator was polling well, “PPP’s newest Minnesota poll finds that Senator Al Franken’s numbers remain strong entering his reelection campaign in 2014… Franken’s approval rating among registered voters in Minnesota is at 51/43.”

The Franken campaign has $4.8 million cash on hand.

Senator Franken’s fundraising numbers represent a move toward what Americans should be pushing for. While all politicians feel the need to play the PAC game now, ideally, we would have real campaign finance reform as well as killing Citizens United. These two things would go a long way toward restoring power to the people, where it belongs in a democracy.

Being able to fundraise primarily from small donations speaks well of elected officials from either or no party. It just so happens that Republicans are the party of the Koch Brothers and ALEC right now, and since their agenda reflects their funding sources, if all things were equal, hardly anyone would vote Republican.

Sarah Jones

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