🚨 🚨 Trump is TERRIFIED of your grassroots support

The national party committees need better standards for campaigns' digital communication

Welcome to the Take Bakery, our weekend column where editorial assistant Ben explores policy ideas that are exciting, but may need a little more time in the oven.

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Nancy Pelosi is disappointed in you, friend.

Because of you, she’s missed her fundraising goal, and if you don’t add your name to this list of 648 grassroots donors by midnight tonight, well…

Now, unless you’re Donald Trump or the folks behind Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker, the Speaker Emeritus doesn’t actually have any beef with you. But there’s a good chance something akin to this laughable faux threat has landed in your inbox at some point. During the 2022 cycle, we collectively received billions of text messages and millions of fundraising emails, and the 2024 election, with the addition of a presidential race, will likely deliver an order of magnitude more to your inbox.

Of course, you have the option of deleting it. Or, unsubscribing. Just whack-a-moling your way out of the perpetual digital fundraising machine.

But it’s a fruitless effort, because political campaigns and organizations have and freely share your address, your email, and your phone number. The invasiveness of texting is particularly grating, as the desperate pleas for cash are infused with a personal dimension when sandwiched between messages with friends and loved ones.

What to do? The emails and texts you receive have First Amendment political speech protections, making them harder to regulate than commercial advertising. Your email platform could theoretically crack down on spam, but that could force gmail to arbitrate political speech, and it still doesn’t address those darn text messages.

Reform must come from inside the political fundraising industry. It’s time for the national party committees to set quotas on how many messages they send, to implement internal reforms targeting deceptive messaging techniques, and perhaps to engage in some personal reflection on whether democracy should really be this annoying.

Good industry, mad firms

The digital fundraising machine is not pointless; it’s the mighty connective tissue between small dollar donors and political candidates. And it’s regularly the largest source of campaign contributions in any given election, supplying much-needed cash for our marathon election cycle.

I write from a position of experience.

I’ve worked in the digital political communications industry, and part of my job was crafting emails that were designed to catch eyes in inboxes and generate donations. But my political communications firm was keenly aware of its obligation to avoid the spam trap and tried to raise money while also sending informative and entertaining emails for our clients.

This worthy strategy — building a good-faith relationship with the audience — can help navigate the sometimes dueling goals of fundraising and managing a healthy list of email contacts. But unfortunately, the industry incentive structure sometimes treats the donor base like an animate wallet and deploys deceptive fundraising tactics designed to bring in the money at any (figurative) cost.

In this analysis of nearly a million fundraising emails from both Democrats and Republicans during the 2020 election, authors Mathur, Wang, and Narayanan found that the overwhelming majority of emails used “manipulative” fundraising tactics. This included obscuring and altering the sender field and deceptively mentioning fake fundraising deadlines. Eleven percent of all emails included the outright fraudulent claims that campaigns would “match” donations up to 1500%, which would be illegal under FEC individual contribution limits.

Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley studies digital political communication tactics, and I asked her why such a significant amount of political emails feel like fundraising spam. She said the reason, unfortunately, is because it works. She explained, “Campaigns live and die on their popularity, their votes and money. And if the strategy isn't working because they're not making money, they'll stop.”

Aggressive fundraising emails are not inherently bad.

Campaigns need money, and stoking the genuine fears of their most ardent donors can, at times, be a fair tactic. But these deceptive emails become an order of magnitude worse when they come from campaigns that donors had no interest in joining in the first place. In that same report, the authors said that the majority of email programs in the data set reported no privacy policy at all, which means that if you donate or sign up for one particular campaign, you are essentially signing up for a whole horde.

Professor Stromer-Galley describes the journey your email goes on if you made a donation to President Obama back in 2012:

When somebody gives money to this campaign, they're kind of signaling their affiliated with the Democratic Party. That data then goes to the Democratic Party, to the political party, and the party then makes that data available to candidates who are running for office down ballot. And it also makes it available to those fundraising arms like the governors and senatorial committees.

That’s why you’re constantly being emailed and texted by campaigns you have no interest in. By adding your name to a petition, or pitching in a few dollars, you’re signing up for a lifetime of political spam.

Text messages are worse

It's important to differentiate between text messages and emails. Text messages, by their nature, are a more personally intrusive form of communication. Right now, I have a text asking me if I’ll DEFINITELY vote for President Biden this year. It’s sandwiched between a group chat with my college friends and messages from my sister.

If you feel like your phone is buzzing with more political spam in recent years, you’re not alone — it’s happening to everyone. In the 2021 Supreme Court Case Facebook v. Duguid, the Court weakened consent requirements on mass text messages, meaning that campaigns don’t need your permission to text you anymore. As a result, texts boomed by 158% in the 2022 election cycles, totaling 15 billion overall and relegating the American teenager to silver in the texting Olympics.

But you can just click STOP, right? Will Ackerman, an IT tech security expert, says good luck. "If you interact with any of these messages, they will know that it is an active number. So if you push stop on that number, it can be shared. Then it can go to another number, another group. So I would advise not interacting with any of those messages."

Image courtesy of the New York Times

Political text messaging programs have become fertile grounds for the seeds of misinformation. Unlike emails, most people check their texts avidly throughout the day, and the more direct format makes them an ideal vessel for spreading political lies, which can be deployed to devastating effect at the most consequential moments of an election.

For example, on the night before the 2022 Kansas abortion referendum, a Republican digital firm sent a text message that read “Women in KS are losing their choice on reproductive rights. Voting YES on the Amendment will give women a choice. Vote YES to protect women’s health.”

The only problem, however, was that voting “No” was the pro-choice position. This text wasn’t a form of political theatrics or a deceptive fundraising tactic, it was an outright lie.

How to fix the tragedy of the political communication commons

When it comes to outright false political information like in the Kansas abortion referendum, we’re short on solutions. It’s possible to complain to the FEC, and punish the campaign or political organization sending the message. But that won’t stop the false text campaigns from succeeding in a time sensitive environment. And it’s not like we want our cell phone companies monitoring every message we receive for possible misinformation.

However, I believe there is an identifiable problem with a workable solution. Whether it’s text or email, the primary problem is the over saturation of the digital political communication commons.

As Professor Stromer-Galley noted, national party committees like the Democratic and Republican Congressional Committees, are the epicenter of voter contact distribution. If you’re a down ballot candidate looking for voters, asking the party for access to the centralized email and phone number database is a great way to start. That means it’s first up to the committees to establish a better set of guidelines for the parties’ digital communication strategies. And if campaigns and associated PACs don’t follow them, they shouldn’t be given any more emails. It’s even worth withdrawing support from some of the most egregious campaigns.

Here’s what the DNC and RNC should start looking at as points of reform:

• Quotas on how many emails and texts campaigns send per week.

• An end to outright deceptive fundraising techniques like “donation matching” and fake “must-hit fundraising goals.

• New contacts that didn’t first consent should be given three introductory campaign welcome emails, asking if that voter would like to receive more information from the campaign. If the receiver does not opt in, then that request needs to be honored and that voter should no longer be contacted.

Professor Stromer-Galley added one final suggestion. She says that through her research, she would have thought “there would be greater knowledge among the American public about the policy positions of the parties and candidates.” She believes emails “that provide some policy substance would also contribute to aiding the voter to be more knowledgeable.”

This is another worthy recommendation that our national parties should follow.

That’s because as silly as these emails may seem, they’re actually one of the primary ways in which voters interact with politics And it’s bewildering to me that our elected officials regularly co-sign communication that reads like it was written by Macedonian scam artists. Especially, at a time of such high public distrust. 

Adding a touch of dignity and professionalism to these email operations might marginally hurt the bottom fundraising line, but it will contribute to a healthier form of politics. I recognize that there is a first mover dilemma here, where both the DNC or RNC might avoid reform, for fear that the opposing party will have a fundraising advantage.¹

But if you’re reading this and you work at the DNC or RNC, recognize that you have the power to make change here. Tell your campaigns to improve their digital and text operations, because they’re driving us all insane.

1. It’s worth noting that Republicans send far more political spam messages than Democrats.