‘A feeling of despair:’ Democratic donors grapple with messaging, midterm map and an emboldened Trump

In this combination image, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and U.S. President Donald Trump are seen. (Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Maggie Kulyk, a progressive donor and activist in the Atlanta area, has a long list of worries about U.S. President Donald Trump: His moves to bypass Congress and swiftly slash the size of government, the financial fallout of his steep tariffs and his decision to install Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, in a powerful government role.

“This chaos is intentional, and it’s terrifying,” she said. But she’s also alarmed by the response from Democrats at the national level. “It has been astoundingly bad. It is as if we are dealing with an analog group in a digital world.”

Since losing the presidency and the Senate last November, Democrats in Washington have struggled to land on a unified message to effectively confront Trump, much to the dismay of some Democratic contributors and activists. The discontent has exploded in recent days over Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s vote – along with that of nine other Democrats – to advance a GOP-led funding bill to avert a government shutdown.

A new CNN poll underscores Democrats’ challenges: The party’s favorability rating tumbled to 29 per cent this month, a record low – driven in part by its supporters’ views that the party should focus more on trying to thwart the GOP’s agenda.

Some in fundraising circles say the growing frustration is pushing some contributors to prioritize House or state-level races, rather than throw money into flipping the Senate, where Republicans currently hold 53 seats to 47 held by Democratic-aligned senators.

‘Tough and challenging times’

The Democrats’ political woes were complicated by New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s announcement last week that she would not seek a fourth term – further endangering the party’s hopes of regaining the majority in the Senate in next year’s midterm elections.

Shaheen became the third Democratic incumbent whose term is up next year to declare her retirement, joining Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and Michigan Sen. Gary Peters to announce their departures after the 2026 midterm elections.

“These are really tough and challenging times,” said Alan Kessler, a veteran Democratic fundraiser in Philadelphia, who called Shaheen’s retirement “devastating.”

Every few hours, he said, someone he knows reaches out to him with a fresh worry or outrage about the Trump administration’s actions and how to respond.

“There’s almost a feeling of despair and hopelessness that exists,” he said.

For some donors and fundraisers, the priority has shifted to seizing the House from Republicans – who hold a paper-thin majority in the chamber. “The reality is that they can win,” one Democratic strategist and fundraiser said of House Democrats. “And the reality is the Senate – with these retirements – can’t.”

Officials with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee insist they are well positioned for the midterms, saying their fundraising so far this year remains in line with past performances for the early months of an off-year election cycle. Digital fundraising, according to one aide, was particularly strong last month in response to appeals to donors that invoked Musk.

David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, maintains that his party has ample avenues to flip the Senate next year as Republicans defend 22 of the 35 seats on the ballot.

“Open seats in states the GOP hasn’t won in decades don’t change the fundamentals of the cycle: Republicans have more seats to defend, and they’re doing it in a hostile political environment,” Bergstein said in a statement.

But all three states with open seats have seen Republicans make inroads. In New Hampshire, for instance, Trump improved his margin of defeat last year and former Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte handily won the governor’s race.

And one adviser to multiple Democratic donors said contributors increasingly feel that Democrats on Capitol Hill are not effectively confronting the extraordinary challenges posed by Trump’s actions.

Those frustrations rose to the surface earlier this month over Democrats’ uneven response to Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress. But they have boiled over in recent days over Schumer’s handling of the funding confrontation in Congress. (The environment has grown so heated that Schumer this week postponed a planned tour to promote his new book.)

Schumer “still lives in the 20th Century media environment with his little flip phone,” the adviser said, in a sarcastic reference to the New Yorker’s old-school mobile device. “It’s time to really step up and do some different things.”

Some donors the person works with have opted to direct their money to state contests.

“My folks are all in on governors, all in on state legislative” candidates, the adviser said. “That’s the only place where we can actually push back and where the power is. They are just not seeing leadership at the federal level.”

This year, Democrats hope to retain the governor’s office in New Jersey and flip one in Virginia – where they are banking on voter alarm about Musk-driven cuts to the state’s sizable federal workforce to propel a Democrat to power and help grow the party’s majorities in the state legislature.

Next year, Democrats are looking to retain governors’ seats in key presidential battlegrounds, including Pennsylvania and Arizona – where incumbent Govs. Josh Shapiro and Katie Hobbs are seeking reelection – and Michigan – where a crowded field is shaping up in the race to replace Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is term-limited. The party also will need to defend the governor’s seat in Wisconsin, now held by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who has not declared whether he will seek a third term. (Wisconsin law does not limit governors’ terms.)

Democrats also are targeting two GOP-held seats on the ballot next year: In the swing state of Nevada, where Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo is seeking a second term, and in Georgia to replace term-limited GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

Donor defections

Kulyk, a wealth manager, said she’s never been a large donor to the Democratic Party, giving only modest amounts over the years.

But she’s now directing her donations elsewhere — contributing to grassroots groups working to support immigrants, minority populations and LGBTQ people, communities that she views as under attack from the Trump administration. She’s encouraging people she knows to do the same.

“I strongly feel that we need to be funding people closest to the pain,” she said.

Across the progressive landscape, liberal groups engaged in politics say they are experiencing a cash crunch.

“Very few people are writing checks,” said Amanda Litman, the president and co-founder of Run for Something, which recruits and trains progressive candidates to run for down-ballot offices.

Although she’s seeing record numbers of candidates interested in running for office, Run for Something had to lay off more than a dozen staffers late last year over financial concerns. People are clamoring for more protests and ads to counter Trump, Litman said, “but there’s no money to do any of that.”

Democrats can’t afford any donor defections, as Trump and aligned groups build big war chests for the midterms. As CNN recently reported, Musk – who spent nearly $300 million to elect Trump and Republicans in Congress last year – has committed to significant spending on campaigns to help the GOP.

Although term-limited himself, Trump has boasted of raising upwards of half a billion dollars since the election and has pledged to invest heavily in preserving the GOP’s majorities in Congress and buck the trend of the president’s party losing congressional seats in the midterm elections.

‘Premature panic’

On Tuesday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker – one of Democrat Party’s most outspoken critics of the Trump administration and a prominent donor – criticized Senate Democrats who sided with Republicans to advance the funding bill, saying his party must take every opportunity to use their leverage to “stand up and fight” against the administration.

“It’s probably the first that I can think of where there was a real opportunity for us to stand up and speak out and to protect the people who we stand up for,” Pritzker, considered a potential 2028 presidential contender, said during a talk at the liberal Center for American Progress. “I’m disappointed about what happened.”

Some in Democratic fundraising circles, however, say it’s too soon to declare that the party has failed to arrive at the right response to Trump’s moves.

“I feel like people are in different stages of grief and when we all process through it, we’re going to be pretty aligned on what needs to happen,” said another donor adviser. Even as some contributors decide to take a breather from giving after last year’s grueling and costly presidential race, she said, “I don’t think people will let the Senate go.”

Shekar Narasimhan, a Democratic donor and activist who lives in Virginia, agreed. In an interview Tuesday, he said it was “totally over the top” to withhold money from Senate races at this point or claim that “all is lost” over Schumer’s actions in one, early funding fight.

Retreating from supporting his party’s Senate candidates, he said, would be akin to “shooting my dog because I hate my horse.”

A donor who serves on the Democratic National Committee’s finance committee argued that the party’s case to voters will grow stronger once more Americans feel the impact of Trump’s trade wars and government cuts in their daily lives.

“Look, I don’t like what’s happening, and I don’t think the American people signed up for this, but Democrats have a tendency to hit the panic button,” he said. “It’s premature panic.”