964: How much campaign cash for a scene?

What about for winning?

There’s a viral formula in modern politics: confrontation + camera = cash.

This is not new. Way back in 2009, GOP Rep. Joe Wilson raised $1.5 million more than normal in the weeks following his “You Lie!” outburst during President Obama’s congressional address.

Trump super-charged this phenomenon. ICE combativeness in recent weeks has provided an accelerant. Images of Senator Alex Padilla and NYC mayoral candidate Brad Lander are scary. And the political calculation is clear.

Exactly how much will Democratic candidates benefit in donor cash from being in such a scene?

One recent case study: in January, Rep. Al Green stood defiantly and refused to shake Donald Trump’s hand at the President’s 2025 congressional address, waving his cane and disrupting Trump’s address from the aisle. The moment exploded online. Within hours, the clip was everywhere. Twitter trended. MSNBC ran the tape on repeat.

Rep. Al Green’s campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission shed some light on the fundraising impact. Over the twenty years from his first re-election bid in the 2006 cycle through 2024, Green raised less than $91,000 in contributions of less than $200.

That averages out to about $1,125 per quarter.

In the first quarter of 2025, Green raised $157,999.

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Profit or Revenue?

Pet peeve of mine: when reporters trumpet candidate press releases like “Jimmy Smith Raises $500k in Q1” and then you look and see Team Jimmy spent $400k, including $300k to acquire donor email addresses, send text messages, run digital ads, etc.

This is a minor annoyance when comparing candidate strength, but the real problem is it contributes to the Tragedy of the Common Texts that flood the inboxes of the ~10 million active Democratic donors and makes the whole party worse off.

So to put in context how much Green raised - and how much the ICE arrestees can expect - it is important to know how much he spent to raise that money. And the answer is … basically nothing.

That doesn’t mean the money will do anything productive - the Green campaign’s biggest expense was $7,507 to Getty Images, presumably for the cane picture. Second biggest was credit card fees, third was for accounting. In the 2024 cycle, his biggest expenses were catering (a lot of Hilton Garden Inn) and accounting. In 2022, it was legal expenses.

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On the other end of the age spectrum from the 77-year-old Green, how much was the Hogg PAC helped by the DNC drama? Here is the May revenue and expense breakdown from Rob Pyers:

Newly-defenestrated DNC Vice Chair David Hogg's Leaders We Deserve PAC raised $848.1K in May (including $100K from Dagmar Dolby), burned $781.3K on operating expenditures, gave $5,000 to #IL02 Democratic candidate Robert Peters, and has $1.5M banked

Kamala Harris won IL-02 by 33 points, and won Green’s district by 44 points. You can directly support the strongest candidates in the toughest races here on our Win The Middle slate to make an impact on Democrats winning.

What else should Democrats do?