The Patriot Post® · ActBlue Has the Blues

The Democrat Party’s number one fundraising platform, ActBlue, may be in some serious hot water.

In frustration over George W. Bush, whom Democrats also called “Hitler,” ActBlue was created in 2004 to support Democrat election efforts. Last year, marking its 20th anniversary, ActBlue officials observed, “Since then, the leading online fundraising platform for Democratic candidates and campaigns helped process over $13 billion raised from more than 250 million individual donations.”

In 2020, the Leftmedia outlet Politico gushed that ActBlue had “transformed Democratic politics,” and its “wild success” had “reshaped the way candidates not only raise money but campaign for office.”

ActBlue was the main fundraiser for Kamala Harris’s unsuccessful campaign, funneling $37 million into her campaign coffers over the four days of the Democratic National Convention alone.

Despite the considerable financial backing, Harris proved to be a terrible candidate. In many ways, Democrats have yet to come to grips with just how thoroughly Donald Trump defeated Harris.

Harris’s defeat has left the Democrats in a seemingly unending state of confusion. Indeed, Harris’s campaign out-fundraised Trump’s campaign by a significant margin. And Harris bested Trump in last-minute donations by nearly five to one. The two campaigns ultimately pulled in a combined $2.5 billion¹, with Harris’s total being $1.39 billion to Trump’s $1.09 billion.

So much for getting money out of politics. It wasn’t that long ago that Democrats were howling about that very problem. Was that goal not the impetus behind the passage of the McCain–Feingold Act in 2002?

And then they created ActBlue, and all that howling over money in politics soon dried up.

Now, especially after Harris’s pricey defeat, things aren’t so rosy at ActBlue.

Last week, The New York Times reported² that a number of ActBlue’s top officials had resigned over a few days, and it may be in connection to a whistleblower. Two unions representing the group’s workers also claimed that the resignations are “eroding our confidence in the stability of the organization.”

To add more intrigue, Zain Ahmad, a lawyer in the organization’s general counsel office, sent an internal message claiming that his access to email and communications had been cut off. “Please be advised that we have Anti-Retaliation and Whistleblower Policies for a reason,” he warned.

The latest development³ is that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI) have sent a letter⁴ to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advising that he should launch an investigation into ActBlue. They note that their committees “are investigating reports of potentially fraudulent and illicit financial activity related to contributions to campaigns of candidates for federal offices facilitated by online fundraising platforms like ActBlue.” The letter points to “recent reports suggesting fraud and evasion of campaign finance law by individuals exploiting online contribution platforms, especially ActBlue.”

Finally, Elon Musk insinuates that ActBlue might be behind the recent spate of attacks against Tesla dealerships⁵.

It looks like the rats are fleeing a sinking ship. The question is just how bad the corruption is and how much of it will be revealed. Should ActBlue go under, what impact will that have on Democrat fundraising efforts for the midterms next year? It certainly won’t help.