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Democratic Party fundraising effort helps Clinton find new donors, too
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New York holds its primaries on April 19. Stay caught up with the race.

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Republican candidates' popularity with the general public
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows unpopularity with the public at-large for leading Republicans Trump and Cruz.
0
50
Trump
31% favorable
67% unfavorable
Cruz
36
53
Kasich
39
39
Source: Washington Post-ABC News polls April 6-10 among 1,010 adults. Error margin +/- 3.5 percentage points
THE WASHINGTON POST
67 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump
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New York Democratic polling averages
It may be a make-or-break contest on the Democratic side. A Clinton loss in New York would bolster Sanders’s claim that he can still catch up to her and become the nominee.
53%40%
New York GOP polling averages
Donald Trump: 53%
Trump enjoys broad support in this state, which has 95 delegates at stake.
John Kasich: 23%
Kasich sees an opportunity if New York stays skeptical of Cruz.
Ted Cruz: 18%
Cruz's repeated attacks on Trump's "New York values" don't play well in the state.
The 5 big states that will likely decide both nominations
New York
Delegates at stake for the Democrats: 291 Delegates at stake for the Republicans: 95
Pennsylvania
Delegates at stake for the Democrats: 189 Delegates at stake for the Republicans: 71
Indiana
Not a key state for Democrats. Delegates at stake for the Republicans: 57
California
Delegates at stake for the Democrats: 475 Delegates at stake for the Republicans: 172
New Jersey
Not a key state for Republicans. Delegates at stake for the Democrats: 126
Everything you need to know about the delegate race ahead
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The upcoming voting schedule
April 19
Both parties vote in New York.
April 26
Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island hold primaries.
May 3
Indiana holds it primary contests.
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Campaign 2016
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State of the 2016 race
 Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton campaigning in Reno on Monday. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
By Matea Gold and Tom Hamburger February 20
Behind the scenes at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting in Minneapolis last August, campaign officials for Hillary Clinton were making a hard sell to the state parties.
In private huddles, they urged state officials to sign on to an ambitious fundraising endeavor that would allow Clinton’s presidential bid, the DNC and the state parties to scoop up and share big checks from wealthy donors. It would mark the earliest creation of a joint fundraising committee between a presidential candidate and the party, and it would be the biggest ever, thanks to a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision that knocked down a cap on how much donors could give to federal campaigns in a single year.
A record 32 state parties signed on to the fund, allowing the committee to solicit donations 130 times greater than what a supporter can give to Clinton’s campaign for the primary.
But the states have yet to see a financial windfall. Meanwhile, Clinton’s campaign has been a major beneficiary, getting an infusion of low-dollar contributions through the committee at a time when rival Bernie Sanders’s army of small donors is helping him close in on her financially. The fund is run by Clinton campaign staff, and its treasurer is Clinton’s chief operating officer.
Clinton officials said their use of the fund is proper and that the state parties will benefit from the millions of dollars the joint fundraising committee is generating for the DNC, which provides the infrastructure to support Democratic campaigns across the country.
Clinton doubles down on campaign finance, banking reforms in N.H. concession speech
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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton emphasizes campaign finance reform and economic policy as she spoke to supporters after conceding to Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary. (Reuters)
“Republicans are spending record amounts trying to beat Democrats, and we want to ensure that the Democratic nominee and candidates up and down the ballot are backed by a strong party with the resources needed to win,” said campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin.
The early, expansive use of a jumbo-size joint fundraising committee shows how the Clinton campaign has worked to maximize donations from wealthy supporters, seizing on rules loosened by the Supreme Court.
Many states were wary of joining the effort, worried that such a partnership would be perceived as an endorsement of Clinton and might interfere with their efforts to raise money from home state donors. But campaign officials — including Marlon Marshall, Clinton’s director of state campaigns — emphasized that this was a way to strengthen the party at its roots, a message Clinton echoed in the speech she delivered at the Minneapolis meeting to DNC members.
“It’s time to rebuild our party from the ground up,” the former secretary of state pledged. “When our state parties are strong, we win.”
The joint committee that was formed, called the Hillary Victory Fund, ended up raising nearly $27 million by the end of 2015, thanks to six-figure donations from longtime Clinton allies and a New York fundraiser headlined by the singer Sting.
So far, the state parties have served only as a pass-through for their share of the funds. Campaign finance records show that nearly $2 million in donations to the fund initially routed last year to individual state party accounts was immediately transferred to the DNC, which is laboring to pay off millions of dollars in debt.
[Political parties go after million-dollar donors in wake of looser rules]
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How much money is behind each campaign?
Even as it has bolstered the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund has had striking success bringing in new donors to support Clinton’s fight to beat Sanders for the Democratic nomination. The committee spent more than $4 million prospecting for small-dollar contributors through direct mail and online ads that resemble official campaign material, down to the signature “I’m with her” tagline. The net proceeds raised for the campaign: $3.24 million through the end of 2015.
Several campaign finance attorneys said the fund’s early investments in small-donor recruitment for Clinton were unusual, noting that a joint fundraising committee’s resources are traditionally focused on boosting a party nominee, typically through events at upscale hotels for deep-pocketed contributors.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Lawrence Noble, a former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) who is now with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “Joint victory funds are not intended to be separate operating committees that just support a single candidate. But they appear to be turning the traditional notion of a joint committee into a Hillary fundraising committee.”
WaPo - Another socialist rag lol