Blake Masters has scored a prime spot in the Republican fundraising world: A chance to reach Donald Trump’s prized donor list directly.
It just comes with a catch: Masters will see very little money from the emailed appeals, though the data he collects in the moment could prove more valuable than the cash.
“President Trump asked me to reach out to remind you just how important YOU are to our movement,” read a Monday email signed by Masters and sent to Trump’s donor list. “We will not win and restore our Republican Majority in the Senate without the support of every single Patriot, and that includes YOU.”
Those who click through a link in that email are sent to a donation page for the “Official Trump Final Countdown Fund,” with the page telling supporters that “your contribution will benefit Save America Joint Fundraising Committee” — Trump’s main fundraising operation — “and Blake Masters for Senate.”
However, the default split for donations made there is 99 percent to Trump’s political operation — and just 1 percent to Masters’ Senate campaign in one of the closest battleground races in the country. (Donors could choose to change the default split, but it requires clicking through a link written in smaller type and jammed between several more eye-grabbing colored boxes.)
Masters is still getting something out of the deal, though.
Even though the donation split is dramatic, Republican digital operatives said it benefits Masters by giving him access to a group of donors he otherwise wouldn’t have. Someone who donated $5 total through the email — which would have generated 5 cents for Masters — would still be giving Masters access to their contact information. Later on, he can hit them up for more money himself.
“What you’re doing with a split that’s a 99-to-1 is giving someone else access to donors,” said Eric Wilson, a veteran GOP strategist who led Marco Rubio’s digital team for his 2016 presidential run. “It’s not about generating money. It’s about getting them access to new donors that they can go solicit over the next 12 days. … You now have 1,000s of donors that have given to your campaign, and are hopefully willing to give again.”
Trump’s email list is considered the most valuable in Republican politics, and it is one that he only rarely opens up to other candidates. A review of some of his fundraising emails captured by the website Archive of Political Emails sent over the past week found that just one candidate other than Masters has signed an email for Trump’s list: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former White House press secretary and the favorite to win the Arkansas governorship in November. Trump has also opened his list for Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor who lost a bid for the state’s at-large House seat over the summer and is on the ballot for a full term again in November.
“This structure allows President Trump to infuse campaigns with active donors, while offsetting the high costs of prospecting, which would cripple a campaign in the closing days,” said a person familiar with Trump’s fundraising efforts, who declined to speak on the record, referring to an industry term for finding new donors for an email list.
Masters has signed at least 20 emails to Trump’s list since the start of October, according to a review of messages in the Archive of Political Emails.
The Masters campaign declined to share any specific details about the emails sent off Trump’s list, including the number of dollars raised or new supporters gained. But his campaign praised the former president as a valuable partner.
“Blake is extremely grateful for all of President Trump’s support — both financial and his energy and time spent campaigning in Arizona,” Katie Miller, a spokesperson for the Masters campaign, wrote in an email.
“In fact, MAGA PAC has spent more in Arizona than any other state which is more than other groups who have given our campaign no help,” she continued, referencing Trump’s super PAC that has recently bought close to $3 million in TV time in the state, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact.
Trump has one of the most aggressive email fundraising operations in the country. The Archive of Political Emails shows that Trump sends just under 10 emails a day, on average, to his list. And his joint fundraising committee raised an average of $260,000 online per day during the third quarter of the year, according to a POLITICO analysis of recent federal disclosures.
Even so, the dramatic split between Masters and Trump on the recent fundraising email triggered some grumbling, with Masters in one of the most competitive Senate races in the country and Trump not actually on the ballot. “Trump is literally nickel and diming candidates he ‘supports,’” tweeted Doug Heye, a longtime Republican operative.
Wilson, the Republican digital operative, noted that there is no industry standard for using split percentages as prospecting, given that it is a relatively new strategy. WinRed, the GOP online fundraising platform that provides the underlying technology for splitting donations across multiple committees, didn’t launch until 2019.
Historically, Republican candidates have relied on renting donor lists from other candidates or groups, often for a fee of a set percentage of the total amount raised.
But a sampling of other recent split fundraising emails from other national figures of both parties found that the 1 percent split was out of the norm.
For example, a recent email sent by former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s PAC boosting Mehmet Oz, the GOP Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, split donations 50-50. So did an email to South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s donors signed by Nevada candidate Adam Laxalt. And Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Masters’ opponent, signed an email for former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s PAC that split donations evenly.
But the low split seems to be a common practice for Trump. One July email sent to Trump’s list and signed by Palin also kicked just 1 percent to her campaign.
Meridith McGraw and Jessica Piper contributed to this report.
