Democrats are Sticking with Embattled ActBlue But Exploring Other Fundraising Options

The digital fundraising and payment processing company for left-leaning candidates has long enjoyed a de facto monopoly but faces Republican investigations and internal tumult.

$100 bills

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Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue is under fire from Republicans — the subject of inquiries from both the Department of Justice and Congress — and fraught with internal drama in part chronicled this month in the New York Times.

The thousands of left-leaning campaigns, party committees and political action committees that use ActBlue’s digital fundraising services are mostly sticking with the company — for now.

But some argue that ActBlue’s legal and operational issues necessitate a more diverse digital fundraising strategy. ActBlue, after all, has a de facto monopoly on Democratic digital fundraising: The platform processes billions of dollars in donations every year from millions of individual donors and it’s become the default way left-of-center campaigns raise money online.