Fundraising emails: Bashing the Kochs can triple a Democrat's fundraising haul.

Bashing the Kochs Can Triple a Democrat’s Fundraising Haul

Bashing the Kochs Can Triple a Democrat’s Fundraising Haul

Weigel
Reporting on Politics and Policy.
March 24 2014 11:24 AM

Bashing the Kochs Can Triple a Democrat’s Fundraising Haul

When the Senate returns this week, we'll learn whether Harry Reid will continue his epic assault on Charles and David Koch. As far as the party's concerned, it's been working—it's gotten the press to cover their attacks, cover the Kochs, even look more closely at whether the Kochs are profiting from this or that Republican-backed deal. Republicans, in response, have been defending the patriotism and good faith of America's most political billionaires—another effect Democrats were going for.

And here's another reason that the Democrats will keep battering the Kochs. I've seen some numbers from fundraising emails from one campaign that were sent from roughly mid-January to mid-March, pretty bad news cycles for the party. Nineteen emails didn't mention the Kochs. They raised, in total, $48,146.30, for an average of $2,534.02 per message.

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But five emails mentioned, in at least some way, the Koch brothers. Those asks raised $32,668.72, an average of $6,533.74 per email. The Democratic base, which has been hearing about and fearing the Kochs for nearly four years, responds to this stuff.

David Weigel is a reporter for the Washington Post.