Last year's "red wave" election bust wasn't the only losing that the Republican / White Supremacist / Shooters party did. The Malignant Loser announced the platform "WinRed" in 2019, trying to imitate the hugely successful ActBlue fundraising machine for Dems. The results? HuffPo reports:
"The GOP’s much-touted, small-dollar fundraising platform WinRed, created in response to the Democratic-aligned ActBlue, lost millions of dollars during the midterm election cycle, according to top Republicans.
One Republican familiar with the privately held entity’s finances said it lost about $6 million over 2021 and 2022. A second confirmed the loss but believed the total was not quite that high. Both spoke on condition of anonymity.
In either event, a seven-figure loss would be a stunning turn for a company Republicans just two years ago pointed to as their answer to the fundraising behemoth ActBlue, which has helped progressive candidates and causes raise many billions of dollars over the past dozen years.
'If you don’t understand payments, it’s easy to go broke,' said one online payment processing expert who also spoke on condition of anonymity." (our emphasis)
Unlike non-profit ActBlue, the WinRed platform is a for profit operation, and the company behind the platform splits its profits between two companies, Data Trust and Revv. The latter was founded by a former staffer in the Malignant Loser's White House, who pocketed the profits with other investors rather than sharing them with Republican candidates.
Under pressure from Republican political committees, the platform eliminated its 30 cent-per-transaction fee, and that, along with investments in an in-house credit card processing system to backstop their "Stripe" system, apparently put them in the red:
"Between the elimination of the per-transaction fee and the money spent trying to replicate Stripe’s services, WinRed did not come close to breaking even, despite its near universal adoption by Republican candidates.
One top Republican with knowledge of the financial structure said dropping the 30 cents per donation was the killer. 'They had to eat that transaction fee. And that’s how they lost their ass,' the Republican said. “If they had raised as much as they thought, they would have made a few million dollars.” (our emphasis)
As their business genius cult leader would say, "Sad!"
(illustration: Matt Chase)
