NY Magazine: “The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Friday night has entirely reshaped the 2020 election. It has shifted the focus away from the pandemic to the Supreme Court and further divided an already fractured polity just at the moment that the coronavirus death toll in the United States has reached 200,000. But aside from transforming the political discourse, it has already had a far more tangible impact on the election, unleashing an unprecedented torrent of small-dollar fundraising for Democrats. Since Ginsburg’s death, well over $100 million in new donations has come in to Democratic campaigns via ActBlue, the online fundraising hub.”
“In particular, nearly $20 million has been donated through a web page entitled Get Mitch or Die Trying run by hosts of Pod Save America, a popular liberal podcast hosted by Obama-administration veterans. As a default, these funds have been directed equally to candidates running in over a dozen competitive Senate races. This means that just from this effort alone, Democratic hopefuls in states from Alaska to Georgia have raised over $1 million from one fundraising web page on one weekend. Tommy Vietor, a former Obama-administration official and one of the hosts of Pod Save America, told Intelligencer that he had never seen anything like the enthusiasm demonstrated over the weekend. He said the fund had been set up ‘a couple of years ago’ to focus attention on Senate races, and until Friday night, it had raised a total of $3.5 million. As of early Monday, that total was over $21 million.”