Within the months earlier than the 2020 presidential election, Roy W. Bailey, a Dallas businessman, acquired a stream of textual content messages from Donald J. Trump’s re-election marketing campaign, asking for cash in persistent, virtually determined phrases.
“Have you ever forgotten me?” the messages learn, Mr. Bailey recalled. “Have you ever abandoned us?”
Mr. Bailey was accustomed to the Trump marketing campaign: He was the co-chair of its finance committee, helped increase tens of millions for the hassle and personally contributed a number of thousand {dollars}.
“Take into consideration that,” Mr. Bailey mentioned not too long ago in regards to the frequency of the messages and the beseeching tone. “That’s how uncontrolled and loopy a few of this fund-raising has gotten.”
He did, finally, desert Mr. Trump: He’s now elevating cash for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whose marketing campaign has pledged to keep away from the sorts of on-line fund-raising ways that irritated Mr. Bailey and which have unfold in each events, significantly the Republican Occasion, in recent times as candidates have tried to amass small donors.
No phony deadlines, Mr. DeSantis has promised donors. No wildly implausible pledges that sizable contributions can be matched by committees affiliated with the marketing campaign. And no tricking donors into recurring donations.
This technique is among the refined methods Mr. DeSantis’s crew is attempting to distinction him with Mr. Trump, who has usually cajoled, guilt-tripped and sometimes misled small donors. Though his marketing campaign has circuitously known as out Mr. Trump’s strategies, on the day Mr. DeSantis declared he would run for president, his web site prominently vowed to eschew “smoke and mirrors,” “faux matches” and “lies” in its fund-raising.
For the DeSantis marketing campaign, the vow of no trickery is dangerous. Mr. Trump, essentially the most profitable on-line Republican fund-raiser ever, has proven that such ways work. However Generra Peck, Mr. DeSantis’s marketing campaign supervisor, mentioned that method broken the long-term monetary well being of the Republican Occasion as a result of it risked alienating small donors.
“We’re constructing a motion,” Ms. Peck mentioned final month in an interview at DeSantis marketing campaign headquarters in Tallahassee.
Thus far, it’s tough to inform if Mr. DeSantis’s method is working. His fund-raising slowed after his marketing campaign started in late Could, and marketing campaign officers didn’t present figures that may have make clear its success with small donors.
The battle to lift cash from common People could seem quaint within the period of billionaires and tremendous PACs, which have taken on outsize roles in U.S. elections. However straight marketing campaign money continues to be, in some ways, the lifeblood of a marketing campaign, and a strong measure of the energy of a candidate. For instance, G.O.P. presidential contenders should attain a threshold of particular person donors set by the Republican Nationwide Committee to qualify for the talk stage, a bar that’s already inflicting some candidates to have interaction in gimmicky contortions.
To spotlight what it payments as a extra moral method to fund-raising, the DeSantis marketing campaign has devoted an enormous wall inside its modest workplace to scrawling the names — first identify, final preliminary — of each donor to the marketing campaign, tens of hundreds of them thus far.
It’s an intensive effort. Throughout work hours, marketing campaign employees members — in addition to Mr. DeSantis himself, in a single occasion — consistently write names on the wall in purple, blue and black markers.
“We wish our employees to have a look at that wall, bear in mind who helps us, to recollect why we’re right here,” Ms. Peck mentioned.
Mr. DeSantis’s advisers argue that being extra clear with donors could possibly be a long-term manner for Republicans to counter the clear benefit Democrats have constructed up in web fund-raising, largely due to their on-line platform ActBlue, based in 2004. A Republican different, WinRed, didn’t get off the bottom till 15 years later. A better share of Democrats than Republicans mentioned they’d donated to a political marketing campaign within the final two years, in line with a recent NBC News poll, which means the G.O.P. has a much less sturdy pool of donors to attract from.
“One of many greatest challenges for Republicans, throughout the board, is constructing out the small-dollar universe,” mentioned Kristin Davison, the chief working officer of By no means Again Down, the primary tremendous PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis.
The tell-the-truth method to deadlines and targets has been examined by different campaigns, together with these of Senator Bernie Sanders, who constructed a sturdy community of grass-roots donors in his two presidential runs.
Mr. DeSantis’s marketing campaign mentioned final week that it had raised $20 million in his first six weeks as an official presidential candidate, however the quantity that got here from small donors is not going to be obvious till later this month, when campaigns file second-quarter disclosures.
The marketing campaign didn’t reply to a query about what number of small donors had contributed thus far. It had set a objective of recruiting 100,000 donors by July 1, however as of late June, the wall had solely about 50,000 names, in line with a fund-raising electronic mail.
And though Mr. DeSantis’s crew has pledged to behave transparently in relation to small donors, senior aides within the governor’s workplace have faced accusations that they inappropriately pressured lobbyists into donating to his marketing campaign.
Eric Wilson, the director of the Middle for Marketing campaign Innovation, a conservative nonprofit targeted on digital politics, mentioned the DeSantis marketing campaign was smart to keep away from on-line stress ways, which he likened to a “dopamine arms race” that burns out donors and turns off voters.
“They are often efficient, however voters say they don’t like them,” Mr. Wilson mentioned. “You possibly can’t make the complete meal round sugar.”
Mr. Wilson mentioned he had additionally seen different campaigns attempt extra sincere communications: “You’re beginning to see a recalibration.”
As an example, the marketing campaign of former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina said in Could that Mr. DeSantis had imitated language utilized in Ms. Haley’s fund-raising emails.
The ways in which campaigns attain out to potential small donors on-line grew out of old school telemarketing and fund-raising by mail. Earlier than electronic mail, campaigns despatched out faux telegrams, letters stamped to seem they’d been hand-addressed, surveys and different gimmicks to attract donations.
Within the period of electronic mail and smartphones, it’s simpler to succeed in a lot of potential donors, however the danger of bombarding and overwhelming them is greater. It can be more durable to induce folks to open messages, not to mention contribute. The topic line must be compelling, and the provides want to face out — which might lead, for instance, to doubtful guarantees that campaigns will in some way “match” any contributions made, a observe that has been widely criticized.
Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign sends about 10 emails per day, along with textual content messages. His marketing campaign has escalated bogus matching guarantees to the purpose of absurdity, telling donors that their contributions can be matched at “1,500%.”
A spokesman for the Trump marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The ways aren’t restricted to Republicans. Democratic teams have additionally been criticized and mocked for imprecise guarantees of “300 p.c matches” of their fund-raising pitches.
For its half, the DeSantis marketing campaign mentioned its technique was devised to ascertain long-term relationships with small donors, moderately than to suck them dry as rapidly as attainable.
The DeSantis marketing campaign has adopted a “subscriber unique” mannequin, permitting donors to affix so-called tele-town halls with Mr. DeSantis (“You guys are a part of the crew,” the governor informed listeners throughout a June 12 name), acquire early entry to merchandise, and obtain weekly “insider” updates. It’s the carrot, not the stick, a blueprint that marketing campaign officers mentioned was adopted partially from the enterprise world.
Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign has clearly taken discover.
On Friday, in an obvious spherical of fund-raising one-upsmanship, the Trump marketing campaign introduced a brand new donor initiative, saying it will construct a “huge, lovely Donor Wall” at its New Hampshire headquarters.
“And I don’t imply scribbled on the wall with a crayon, like another campaigns do,” mentioned the marketing campaign electronic mail, which was written in Mr. Trump’s voice, “however a heavy, respectable plaque with the names of our nice donors finely etched inside.”
All for a donation of $75.
Patricia Mazzei contributed reporting from Miami.