Thousands of donors who gave to Barack Obama in 2008 are so far sitting out this year, and nowhere is the drop-off so steep as in Oregon, reports the website BuzzFeed. In Oregon, 91 percent of those who gave at least $200 -- the threshold for identifying individual contributors -- to Obama in the 2008 campaign have so far not contributed to the president's reelection campaign.
That's the highest percentage of any state in the country, according to BuzzFeed. Idaho, Colorado and Nevada were also close behind. BuzzFeed didn't provide full data on the states, but the national average was an 88 percent drop, so it doesn't appear to vary that much.
The drop-off doesn't necessarily signal that the Obama campaign is having trouble raising money (although Republican Mitt Romney did out-raise Obama in May).
With the advantage of incumbency and the apparatus of the Democratic National Committee behind him, Obama is exceeding his fundraising pace in 2008. His campaign aides pointed out to BuzzFeed that many of those donors who have not yet hit the $200 mark may do so by the end of the campaign.
Jake Weigler, a former Democratic political operative who now works for a consulting firm, Strategies 360, pointed out that Oregon Democrats were particularly excited about the rarity of the state having a competitive primary in 2008. "So it's not surprising that there were a lot of donations" during the primary that year, he said.
Still, BuzzFeed interviews with several Obama donors from 2008 made it clear that many of them had either lost some enthusiasm for the president or were too financially strapped to contribute to the campaign.
Poster Comment:
You think Oregonians have "either lost some enthusiasm for the president or were too financially strapped to contribute to the campaign"? I thought they'd be the LAST to throw in the towel. Damn ... there may really be a chance buttwheat won't win.