Opinion: Did the shutdown influence donations?

For the first time in 2013, the Democratic National Committee has outraised the Republican National Committee in monthly fundraising.

Heated discourse leading up to the government shutdown may have been a contributing factor to both parties amping it up in fundraising, with the RNC picking up $7.1 million compared to 7.4 from the DNC.

The Hill’s Cameron Joseph reported that “The DNC raised slightly less than $850,000 from 30,000 donors in the 24-hour period leading into the shutdown.”

It makes sense that Republicans have been doing their part helping to raise more money thus far this year. Small donations add up slowly. The segment of the American public that is up in arms over the Affordable Care Act could foreseeably equate to more funds from the right. But this is no historical anomaly with GOP funding, as Republicans typically out-fundraise Democrats when it comes to grassroots projects and organizations (super PACs and the like included).

But now it sure seems that intensive talks leading up to the government shutdown may have helped the DNC to rake in some more cash in September.

That is not to say that Republicans did not contribute—$7.1 million is no small figure for the RNC and larger than most months prior. Dissatisfaction with the ACA and the fear of it being implemented very likely helped funnel in large amounts of donations.

As a result of continually out-funding the DNC at a grassroots level, (and one could argue, better management of the money collected) the RNC is entirely debt-free, while the DNC is still $17.5 million in the hole.

As consistently as the RNC outperforms the DNC in terms of fundraising, President Barack Obama has outraised his opponent in both elections--his opposition being John McCain the first time around and in 2012 Mitt Romney. When it comes to elections, Democrats have no problems finding donors. But Republicans seem to do it better when the money does not come from big name donors; couple that with large organizations giving money to GOP campaigns, and Republicans have just been downright better over the years in fundraising.

Knowing how poorly the shutdown reflected on Republicans in some of the public’s eyes, as well a great deal of public disapproval of the GOP (and many Republican Congressmen in particular) it would not be surprising to see the fundraising of both parties go up in the month of October, even with an American public disillusioned with those on Capitol Hill.