Obama’s 2012 Digital Fundraising Outperformed 2008 [View all]

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Exclusive: Obama’s 2012 Digital Fundraising Outperformed 2008
By Michael Scherer
Nov. 15, 2012


Nearly a year ago, Barack Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina took to YouTube with an expletive-laden post-holiday message for supporters. “People have speculated that this is a billion dollar campaign,” Messina said. “That’s bull—-.” And he meant it, at the time.

But when the final numbers are counted, Obama’s aides now expect more than $1 billion dollars to have been raised by the 2012 campaign and its affiliated party committees, breaking the 10-figure milestone for the first time in history. The reason is simple: the campaign brought in more small-dollar fundraising through email, social media, mobile and its website during the final months of the race than initially projected.

In total, according to new campaign calculations acquired exclusively by TIME, the Obama team raised about $690 million digitally in 2012, up from about $500 million in 2008, according to a senior campaign adviser. That number includes all contributions that were given electronically, including some donations that were generated by high-dollar fundraisers but logged through the website.

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This success runs counter to the conventional wisdom, which held that Obama’s re-election campaign would struggle mightily to approach the enormous grassroots enthusiasm of his first presidential run. It is also a testament to the campaign’s leadership, including Messina, who invested heavily in digital efforts early, and the campaign’s digital team, run by Teddy Goff, Marie Ewald and Blue State Digital’s Joe Rospars, who were able to fine-tune their tactics and techniques for raising money electronically. It may also suggest that American voters over the last four years have become more comfortable with the idea of giving small amounts of money to a presidential campaign online.

Here are some other digital milestones that the 2012 campaign has been celebrating, according to the senior adviser who spoke with TIME:

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