WASHINGTON -- Democrats routinely rail against the GOP budget put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), but there's at least one thing they like about it: the amount of money they can raise off of it.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $500,000 in the 24-hour period after the House of Representatives voted to pass Ryan's budget on Thursday, Democratic officials said Friday.
In a DCCC fundraising email that went out after the House vote, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that since the House passed Ryan's budget, her "day didn't start off great." But when grassroots supporters began donating money to the DCCC in protest, she said, it started "looking a whole lot better!"
"Now, we’re less than 900 donations away from reaching 10,000 contributions in just one day! Will you put us over the top?" Pelosi asked, including a link to a donation page.
In addition to the bump in fundraising, the DCCC collected another 500,000 signatures on a petition that went out ahead of the vote on Ryan's budget.
Ryan's budget "cuts taxes for the top 1 percent, and cuts Medicare and Obamacare for everyone else," reads the petition email. "But the good news? Over 400,000 supporters have signed our petition against Ryan's extreme budget. We want to hit 500,000 supporters before tomorrow's vote -- are you in?"
Despite support among most Republicans, Ryan's budget has no chance of becoming law, given that Democrats control the Senate and that President Barack Obama wouldn't sign it. Democratic officials are therefore fine with Republicans holding votes on it and touting it as the basis for their budget priorities.
"Not only do independent voters reject the priorities of this Republican budget, but it energizes grassroots Democrats to fight back," said DCCC executive director Kelly Ward. "Our supporters have spent years fighting for fundamental fairness and they are passionate about stopping the Ryan budget because it would devastate our seniors and the middle class -- all while giving the wealthy even more breaks."
A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether donations increased after the vote on Ryan's budget.
UPDATE: 2:05 p.m. -- Ian Prior, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, didn't have any specific fundraising numbers tied to Thursday's vote. But he said that the NRCC's email list picked up 30,000 new subscribers this week, and that generally speaking, Ryan's budget has been a plus for the NRCC.
"Our 'Co-Sign the Ryan Budget' campaign saw record online traffic as well as a staggering amount of new email sign-ups," Prior said. "We also raised a record $14.4 million for this year's March dinner, with Paul Ryan chairing the effort."
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