(bright music) - [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- This week in "UnSpun," the politics of fundraising.

From small dollar donations to the big checks behind the scenes, all campaigns need cash.

We'll talk to a fundraising pro to find out how they do it, how they keep the money flowing to keep the campaign going.

Plus, I'll have my top five things politicians do not want you to know about fundraising.

"UnSpun" is next on PBS Charlotte.

In today's America, welcome to the spin game.

Believe me, I know.

I'm Pat McCrory.

When I was governor and mayor, I played the spin game.

I was played by the spin game.

But aren't we all done being spun?

Let's take the spin out of the world we're in, here on "UnSpun."

Good evening.

I'm Pat McCrory and welcome to "UnSpun," the show that tells you what politicians are thinking, but not saying.

We all got a peek behind the curtain at the power of political fundraising a few weeks ago when President Joe Biden decided to end his campaign for reelection.

The president never told us exactly why he was quitting the race, but maybe he didn't have to.

Maybe we already know why.

- [Reporter 1] CNN is reporting that a big money fundraiser scheduled for Chicago next month will not take place.

- [Reporter 2] Fundraising is set to drop possibly by half.

- The spigot's run dry.

Donors are not giving money anymore, Mr. President, - And it's the donors that put 'em into place.

It's the donors that are his source of power.

- Think about it.

When he was losing in the polls, President Biden said he was staying in the race.

When he lost the debate, the president still said there was no way he'd be forced out.

But when you lose your donors, especially your big money donors, well you don't have much of a choice.

Because here's the truth about all campaigns, especially the big campaigns for the White House and Congress and statewide offices.

Follow the money.

Follow the money, because when the money stops, when the big donations drop, that's when you know your campaign is over, even when you don't want it to be over, even when you're the president of the United States.

Join us now here on "UnSpun" is Heather Dickson, a top political fundraising pro here in North Carolina, who helped me raise money for my first campaign for governor way back in 2008.

Since then, her fundraising clients have included Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, and the Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

Heather, it's great to see you on "UnSpun."

Welcome.

- Governor, thanks for having me.

- So how has the game of fundraising changed in the past decade?

- Gosh, I'd say the biggest change I've seen is just the cost of entry has grown tremendously.

So when we started together in 2008, I, the maximum donation back then was $4,000 per person.

And you know, now it's increased to the maximum donation is $6,400.

You've got dark money, super PAC groups, even state legislators that have affiliated C4s and dark money groups that are getting hundred thousand dollars checks, so- - All right, wait a minute.

- I would say the cost of entry has increased tremendously.

- Define what you mean by dark money.

- Yeah, so a dark money group is basically when the Supreme Court overturned Citizens United, it allowed for donors across the country to basically exceed political donation limits in the state.

So our state currently has a donation limit of $6,400 for an individual.

And so what they're able to do is a candidate can work with someone and then set up a C4, which is a entity that allows a group to accept bigger donations.

So, you know, a individual can give a hundred thousand dollars, they can give corporate donations depending on how the group is set up.

And that group can in turn not coordinate with the candidate, but they can spend money on behalf of that candidate in a race.

- So how does a person who wants to support a candidate know whether they're giving to a dark money group, which is usually a super PAC or the candidate's campaign?

- Yeah, great question.

So a lot of times a candidate will, you know, part of being a candidate, you've gotta make phone calls, you've gotta be reaching out to donors.

And so you'll call a top donor and let them know, "Hey, I'd like for you to give me a maximum donation of my campaign.

That's 6,400.

I also have, there's another group that's supporting me and they might be reaching out to you."

And so, 'cause again, the candidate can't coordinate with these groups, but what will in turn happen is that the kind of super PAC dark money group can look at the candidate's campaign finance report.

They can see who gave the candidate maximum donations, and then they can reach out and ask for those bigger donations.

So if you see somebody that gave a $6,400 contribution, you know they have the capacity to give more.

As a fundraiser, I'm analyzing those reports and I am calling up that donor and saying, "Hey, I've got another outlet.

If you want to support this candidate in a bigger way, here's the opportunity to do that.

You can do it through, you know, this group."

- So you're in a big business now, big money in a big fundraise, multi-billion dollar business in Washington and every state capital and every city where there's elections.

First of all, what is your role as someone who helps a candidate with fundraiser or a super PAC or a dark money group, and how much of a percentage or how much pay do people typically get that raise money for candidates?

- Sure, yeah, when I first started, you know, and still to this day with my clients, it's kind of, I do a mixture.

I work with them based on the level of race.

If it's a county commission race, you know, these folks are not gonna be raising as much money.

And normally I tell those guys, "Hey, the first thing you should do, don't hire me.

Sit down, make a list of all of your friends and family, any business leaders that you know, start there.

You don't need to hire me."

But it is a big business.

You've got some of the top fundraisers are charging 10 to 20% off a contribution.

In some instances, they don't have anything to do with that, that contribution coming in.

It will have come in from another state routed through a C4 and, you know, I don't practice this, but others do.

They'll take a, you know, a 10% cut off that.

- So wait.

10% or even a 20% cut of say a hundred thousand dollars donation or even a million dollar donation.

Someone in the fundraising industry can make easily a million dollars.

- Absolutely.

You have fundraisers here in our state that are making a million dollars and I've kind of shifted away from fundraising.

Most recently, I'm doing a little bit of donor advising.

So part of my job is I'm analyzing these fundraising reports, I'm looking at the burn rates and I'm pointing that out to my donors, "Hey, you know, we need to pay attention here.

They've got a burn, they're paying someone too much."

- Do the donors know such a large cut is not going to the candidate or even to the super PAC, but to the administration of that money?

- You know, I don't think many donors know.

No, I think some have started to catch on.

There's been different articles.

I know one major donor in North Carolina wanted to pull his money out of a super PAC when he learned how much was being spent on different consultants.

But yeah, I don't think all of them are aware just how much is going to the fundraising consultant.

- So, Heather, tell me about the major ways to raise money.

- Sure.

Kind of the top three things.

I'm, the thing I preach to all my clients is call time.

So that's where I sit with one of my clients.

I bring a list, we go through it, I kind of talk to the client about the donor, give them a little background information, what their capacity for a donation is, and then my client will call.

- Hold on real quick, real quick.

And if you, you see the capacity in which they could give.

That was always a tough thing for me.

How much do I ask for?

$500, a thousand, $2,000?

How do you determine the capacity on what someone should give?

- Sure.

So that's a really important role of a fundraiser is to analyze finance reports.

So they're gonna go back and you're gonna look at a major donor, you're gonna look at their giving history.

You're gonna see, okay, this person, you know, has historically given a maximum $6,400 check to several candidates.

And so you're gonna feel comfortable advising your client to go in and ask for that maximum donation.

If I see that someone, you know, has been giving thousand dollars donations to a lot of candidates, then I'm not gonna suggest that my client call and ask for the maximum.

I'm gonna say, "All right, let's go in and ask for, you know, I might go a little bit over, let's ask for 2000."

- I gotcha, so- - So I kind of, that's my role.

- So in the remaining minute, how much, what other methods of fundraising, everyone thinks of the big events in the, at fancy homes that you have took me to and the hours upon hours that people are spending on the phone, not campaigning or governing, but on the phone calling people up and people have no idea how much time is spent, but how else do we raise money as candidates?

- Yeah, so the other big thing now is digital fundraising.

And that's where, you know, if you've ever donated to a campaign, you have found yourself on an email list.

You are getting emails from everyone asking for 5, $10 donations.

So that's kind of the other big thing.

I think the Democrats have perfected the digital fundraising game.

The Republicans are catching up through their platform, WinRed, but they still have a long way to go.

The Democrats have been much more successful at that and have been doing it longer.

- Okay.

In the remaining 30 seconds, what's one thing donors should be careful about before they give money to a candidate or to a super PAC?

- Yeah, I think asking pointed questions, you know, I'm giving you this donation, where is my money going?

Asking, just asking some tough questions.

I think that would be my advice to donors and something that I suggest to all my clients.

- How about with credit card?

- Take a look and analyze that.

- How about with your credit card digital, what should you be careful with?

- Yeah, when you're donating online, you'll see, you'll get a prompt, "Hey, do you wanna donate to these or click this button for recurring donations."

So be careful if you're, you know, giving $20 to a candidate you believe in, be careful not, you know, if you don't wanna keep giving that, be careful not to click that button down at the bottom.

It can be an easy, simple mistake to make.

- Heather Dickson, you're a real pro in the fundraising game and I appreciate you unveiling some of the information that the public needs to know about it.

Thank you very much.

- It was great to you again.

Thank you.

- Next up, PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier takes "UnSpun" on the street to hear what you're saying about big money campaigns and political fundraising.

- Yeah, from uptown Charlotte to downtown Matthews, we're asking voters who's donating all those dollars to political campaigns because according to the people we're talking to, well it's not them.

(bright music) Have you ever donated money to a political candidate?

- No, I haven't.

- [Jeff] Have you ever been asked to donate money to a candidate?

- Yes, I have.

- Often I don't feel as though I know enough about the candidate in order to support them financially.

I wanna make sure that if I'm doing that, it's because I believe in what they stand for.

- So you don't think there'd ever be a candidate with the right message that would prompt you to write a check or send them a few dollars?

- No, I'll endorse 'em and go vote, but I still wouldn't give any money 'cause I think it's just these people that are getting millions and millions of dollars.

What's 20, $30 going to do?

- [Jeff] Do you think that when a campaign has a lot of money, it also means it has a lot of support?

- Of course.

I think, you know, that goes without saying almost.

Nobody wants to say it, but it definitely plays a part in it because, you know, money sometimes is power.

- Yeah, I know it all comes down to money.

So they're gonna take as much money as they can get.

- [Jeff] If you are not giving donations, then where is the money coming from for these campaigns?

- I'm sure bigger, much bigger pockets than mine.

(bright music) - [Jeff] Are we spending too much on politics?

I guess that's the real question.

- How much is too much I really couldn't say, but do they have the right to campaign?

Yes, I think they do.

The method in which they choose to campaign, now that's another story.

So consumers just have to be diligent about how they choose to offer their contribution to their respective politicians.

- If I'm just another name to them, they're kind of just another name to me.

- You're not interested in helping to pay for those campaigns?

- No, I never contributed any money and I never will.

- Most voters also agree that political fundraising doesn't always equal political success, although more money means getting your message out to more voters and that's the important thing on election day.

Pat?

- Thanks Jeff.

So what do you think about the issue?

Email us your comments on the politics of fundraising to unspun@wtvi.org.

(exciting music) Alright, tonight on our "UnSpun" countdown, we've got the top five things politicians do not want you to know about fundraising.

Let's start out with number five.

Number five, fundraising professionals get a big cut of the donations.

Well actually Heather Dickson in our previous interview just told us that.

She's a fundraising expert and she actually told a not too well-known secret that fundraisers get from 10 to even 20% of donations.

I don't think politicians even know this, much less the donors.

So this is new news that you need to know about how much it takes to raise money and how much it costs.

Let's go to number four.

Once you donate, you'll get more requests from others.

Lemme tell you a little secret.

The minute you donate to a city council campaign or a mayoral campaign or congressional or governor's campaign, it's public record.

It's at the elections board, your name, address, and how much you gave.

It's no longer a secret.

So once you give money to any candidate, all other candidates have access to that information.

And if these candidates think that you might also like them, you're gonna get letter after letter or digital ad from those candidates because you are now public record because you gave even a small donation, much less a large donation.

Let's go to number three.

Fundraising requests are often deceptive.

You know, you get all these digital ads and digital requests going, "We're at a deadline.

We only have three hours to go before you can give $25 and we can meet our goal."

There is no goal, there's no goal that the candidate has to meet.

It's just trying to get you panicked.

It's trying to get you to feel this must be urgent if the candidate is pleading for this money.

Also, as Heather Dixon said, be careful with your credit card because sometimes candidates and super PACs are very deceptive in asking for a credit card donation because if you don't check this is a one-time payment, they might keep taking money out of your credit card every week or even every month.

So this is a major problem and I think pure deception by candidates and by super PACs.

Be careful.

Number two, candidates are now spending more time asking for money than actual campaigning.

Let me tell you how this works.

Even in Capitol Hill right now, politicians are not allowed to raise money in their House or Senate offices.

So what do they do?

They go across the street to an office building owned by either the Democratic Party or the Republican party, where they literally have cubicles with phones and they spend hours upon hours dialing the phone.

You can tell my age, dialing the phone.

No, they're now pushing buttons.

So that's the way it works.

Politicians are dialing for dollars.

And the last, number one.

This is, I've expressed this in the past, candidates have no control over super PACs.

And a lot of times, these super PACs don't even have a board of directors.

It might even be controlled by one person.

So the candidates can help raise money for a super PAC, but if they're in a group of people at a fundraiser for a super PAC, the minute the super PAC starts talking about how the money will be spent, guess what the candidate has to do?

They have to leave the room.

That's what the law is now, separating super PACs from the candidate campaigns.

It's a tough line of distinction and most people don't know about that line of distinction.

(exciting music) PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier joins me now for "UnSpun" one-on-one.

Alright, Jeff, give it to me.

- You know how it works.

I ask him, you answer 'em.

The questions come from this week's headlines and this week's topic, and we start this week with a little experiment I did at home.

When Kamala Harris became the candidate and Joe Biden dropped out, I started counting the emails I got for fundraising from both campaigns for two weeks from that very day.

And we've got a tight shot of my home laptop computer.

I got 99 emails in two days, 98 of them from the Democrats, everyone from Kamala, from the party, from the Clintons, from the Obamas, from her husband all asking for 5 bucks, 10 bucks, 20 bucks, 50 bucks.

I got one email from the Trump campaign asking for money.

So this kind of follows up on your top five.

I've never given money to a campaign before.

I'm not a Republican or a Democrat.

How did I get on that list?

How did I get so many emails?

- Someone got your name off of another list and the campaigns bought the list with your name on it and this is where the big money comes on.

And because sometimes those lists, it takes, they might have to raise $50,000 to break even because of what they paid for a statewide list, a citywide list or a national list of names.

Digital addresses are extremely costly and you have to buy 'em from somebody and those who hold those lists make a lot of money.

And it's a well-known secret there.

- Follow up, 99 emails in two weeks.

- Yeah.

- Isn't that overkill?

- No, not it's cheap.

This is much cheaper than a mailing because if they, in the old days, we'd have to send you postage and postage and the paper and the multiple letters cost a lot of money.

To do one mailing for me in North Carolina would sometimes cost $50,000.

- Yeah.

- And I'd have to raise more than 50 just to break even.

So digital financing is the new way to go because it's so cheap.

Although getting the list and the way they get the list is a lot of times you'll get questions to ask.

You know, you'll get, "Hey, answer this survey on how you feel about the campaign."

And you'll answer the survey.

And that automatically gives them even more information regarding your background, your wealth status, your age.

They get as much data as possible for politics just like they do in the private sector.

- Heather mentioned that the Democrats are better at this than the Republicans.

Big picture, Kamala Harris raised $200 million in the first week of her campaign.

- Yeah.

- 300 million in the month of July.

Is that sustainable or is that just a new candidate on the block and excitement with her donors?

- Most likely some of the money was being held because of Joe Biden's indecision.

Now he had made a decision, but then he changed and most people were anticipating the change.

Then there is excitement.

But I'm telling you, as Heather said, that Democrats have always had a program called ActBlue.

- Mm-hm.

- Which they have tens of millions of names on these lists, and they know exactly who gives, who gives multiple times, and how much money we should ask for.

The Republicans are catching up with a thing called WinRed.

- Mm-hm.

- But remember when you give to those ActBlue or WinRed, someone else is also getting a cut of that money and they have become very wealthy people.

- You said the big donors are holding back.

I get the sense they're not as loyal as the small dollar contributors are.

Why do they hold back?

You know, what's the trigger that keeps them from giving versus not giving?

- Well, they're getting hit up by super PACs.

- Mm-hm.

- And they've learned now, you know, maybe it's not worth it giving to campaigns because they actually have a limit of 5 or $6,000.

To a super PAC, they can give a million dollars, they can give $2 million.

Some are giving 20 and $30 million.

So the whole political landscape has changed because 10 or 15 billionaires can give to either Republicans and Democrats and maybe have too much influence.

It's a sad commentary on what's happened since Citizens United.

- You talked about the landscape.

One of the things we're seeing on the landscape, maybe for the first time are these big Zoom calls.

We heard a lot about them at the beginning of the Kamala Harris campaign where you'd make what a you know, a hundred or $4 million in two hours or something like that.

With is that?

Tell me about what's, you know, behind the scenes, what's behind that tactic and how effective do you think it is?

- It's very effective and it's very cheap.

See, in the past, candidates would have to get on a plane and extend resources, travel expenses, set up a place to meet.

Now they just get on a Zoom call, which basically costs nothing.

COVID changed politics and it made Zoom calls acceptable for business.

And now it's making it acceptable for politics, not just in fundraising by the way, but also giving speeches to large groups of people who don't have to necessarily pay to get on the Zoom call.

Zoom calls is changing politics forever.

- And I guess it's also, it's an invitation kind of a thing.

So the people who are on the Zoom call wanna be there.

They're willing givers as opposed to the random, you know, outreach that you have, you know, for the other, the other ways to get money.

- And then they hope the people on the Zoom call will give that information to other people that can get that data in the future to a Harris or Trump committee so they can bombard them on how to reach them.

It's all about data.

The Obama campaign was the first one that really took advantage of streams of data to reach the public, not just to get out the vote, but also to raise money.

- Hey, I wanna go back to those emails that I received and that a lot of people receive.

It's not just me, obviously.

- Yeah.

- But some of the folks we talked without on the street, they mentioned that they feel like it's an invasion of privacy.

Don't candidates run the risk of alienating the very people they're trying to get money from?

- Yes, yes, they do, but they figure in, that'll be a small percentage versus the large percentage of outreach they actually get and the money they get.

So there might be a cost benefit and a cost is, some people are gonna get irritated with these, by the way, just like flyers you get at your house or letters you get at your house.

The new war is against how did they get my digital number?

And that's irritating a lot of people because there is no privacy.

Most likely your number was picked because someone sold it because you use that number for other types of transactions.

- And last question as we kind of wrap up here.

We're in different stages of the campaign, although this is a very short campaign, the presidential campaign.

- Yeah.

- Because of the late arrival.

- It's almost like a parliamentary campaign in Great Britain.

- Does that, yeah.

Does that change the tactics of fundraising?

Does it make it easier because you've got a shrunken campaign, or is it harder to get those dollars in when you don't have as much time to get those dollars?

- Let me tell you what's gonna be a problem, not the fundraising, but how to spend the dollars.

Because after a period of time, the media companies aren't gonna have any more space.

- Mm-hm, - I mean, they'll be almost, can someone else take this extra hundred thousand dollars?

How do I spend it?

In fact, in the last week or two, you'll see people just throwing their money at anything they can to reach the voter because the airwaves will be filled and so will digital ads.

Right now, it'd be good time to maybe have a media stock if those media companies are dependent upon campaign money.

- Yeah, I know.

Just again, being on the receiving end of all those campaign donation requests the last couple of weeks, it is interesting to see, you know, on the other side of the curtain, on how, how it works and why it works, and why they're doing this in the first place.

- There are a lot of mansions in Washington DC and some of the mansions are owned by people who run these digital ads and are getting a big cut of the action.

- Yep.

Thanks again for the insight and the behind the scenes peak at what's happening.

And that's this week's one-on-one.

(bright music) - Politics has always been a game of give and take.

Once you're elected, your big donor sometimes wants something big in return.

Sometimes it's unique access, or how about a fancy title or appointment?

In fact, a study published last year showed nominees for ambassador gave more than $22 million in political donations before they were nominated.

But now there's a lot more giving and taking since the Supreme Court case called Citizens United.

This case allows independent super PACs to accept unlimited contributions from big money donors.

To pretend these huge donors don't have a direct influence on policy is laughable.

Just this year, Republican and Democratic candidates have gotten super PAC help from gambling, drug legalization and crypto special interest, and suddenly politicians are changing their positions on gambling, drug legalization and crypto.

Coincidence?

I don't think so.

And that's the sad reality of political fundraising as I see it.

Thanks for joining us.

I hope you'll come back next week as we explore political power struggles.

Former Governor Mike Easley joins me to talk about how it happens in Raleigh and Washington.

The backstabbing and power grabbing we both saw in both parties.

That's on our next "UnSpun" where we'll tell you what politicians are thinking, but not saying.

Goodnight, folks.

(bright music) (bright music continues) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.