For Sanders, the high number of donations thus far can be credited to a support base that’s deeply engaged in specific issues — especially the influence of what he so disdainfully refers to as “the billionaire class.” It’s also come from seizing smart opportunities for fundraising. When on two occasions super-PACs representing fellow Democratic contenders Martin O’Malley and Hillary Clinton used negative tactics against Sanders, Goodstein’s team acted swiftly to launch targeted web ads and send out emails to the campaign’s master contact list, imploring subscribers to contribute to prevent the wealthy from influencing the election. When the O’Malley-connected super-PAC first ran a YouTube ad criticizing Sanders in March, the campaign raised much more than it usually did in a normal week. And when the Huffington Post reported that a Clinton-connected super-PAC had been circulating negative emails about Sanders, his campaign raised a record-breaking $1.2 million in less than 48 hours.
“None of this stuff works if there isn’t that energy out there,” Goodstein said. “Clearly people are fired up on these issues, and my team’s doing a good job of smartly figuring out how to harness that energy and make sure that you have the opportunity to engage in a positive way.”
But the steadfast support for Sanders’s campaign is not just derived from frustration with the electoral meddling of elite donors and billionaires. According to Whitney, who heads the company’s email fundraising with Tagaris, email solicitations have been responsible for a significant portion of Sanders’s donations. The loyalty established among the campaign’s followers, he says, is due to their willingness to learn about the policies that are central to the election, and parse through emails from Sanders that are sometimes as long as 2,000 words. These messages address both newsworthy events like the pope’s visit, and issues that Sanders feels passionate about, such as prescription drug reform, or student debt. In the latter email, the staff asked subscribers to reply with what it would mean to them to have no tuition debt, and then re-circulated some of the answers it got to the same list. Sometimes the emails are targeted and include fundraising appeals, but sometimes they are just about messaging and connecting.
“People really feel ownership of this campaign,” Whitney said. “The language that Senator Sanders uses shows everyone is a part of this, and that really encourages people to chip in.”
Goodstein, who enlisted artist Shepard Fairey to create the iconic blue-and-red “Hope” posters for Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, has embraced the idea of collaboration. He’s put some members of Sanders’s Reddit page to work coding special projects. And in late September, he posted a list of famous actors, musicians and other creatives who have publicly backed Bernie.
“We’re looking to put everybody to work,” Goodstein said. “So if you don’t have a thousand dollars, what kind of craft or skill can you donate?”
Perhaps the paramount asset in Sanders’s successful digital campaign is the consistent presence of the candidate himself. His unmistakable persona, along with his unkempt hair and heavy Brooklyn accent, remain a point of attraction to many voters who distrust an overly groomed political class. Former White House aide Chaudhary, for his part, is now doing shareable Bernie vérité videos that highlight these characteristics for social distribution.
“The real innovation here is the authenticity, and the willingness to speak at length about the issues that people are facing every day,” Tagaris said. “Treating people with that kind of respect has really yielded a tremendous response for the senator.”