July 11, 2023
We all know candidates in an election can’t buy your vote. But can candidates pay you for a donation.
Well, republican presidential candidates Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy are testing this theory right now.
Burgum – the North Dakota governor announced today – he’s offering $20 gift cards to 50,000 donors who give his campaign as little as a single dollar. His campaign says the gift cards are to “help ease the burden of Bidenflation” and will cost his campaign $950,000. Ramaswamy – a biotech entrepreneur announced this week he’ll basically pay vetted supporters a 10% commission of any campaign donations they bring in for him.
Let’s set the legal issues aside for a second – and talk about why they’re doing this? At least in Burgum’s case, though he hasn’t said it outright – it’s pretty fair to say– he wants to qualify for the debate stage at the republican presidential primary debate in august. In order for him – or any republican presidential candidate to do that they have to meet several criteria – including — they must earn at least 1% in three high-quality national polls, or a mix of national and early-state polls, between July 1 and August 21. And they must have received contributions from at least 40,000 individual donors, with at least 200 unique donors in 20 or more states. And it’s that particular requirement that has pushed lesser-known candidates to get creative with their fundraising pitches in order to land in front of a national audience alongside GOP frontrunners.
Ramaswamy’s campaign says he’s already qualified for the debate but Burgum hasn’t met that threshold yet. But if this gift card idea is successful, he would meet the unique donor requirement and could possibly generate enough free publicity to get him polling at 1%.
Now campaigns offering non-cash incentives isn’t new. For decades they’ve offered all kinds of things in exchange for donations, like yard signs, books and other merch. And professional campaign fundraisers are actually a thing. But some legal experts say gift card idea raises several campaign finance questions. We’ll have to see if the federal elections commission has anything to say about that.
