Money Talks
Friends,
I want to talk to you tonight about money. Specifically, the money that goes into political campaigns.
Last year, I received hundreds of individual donations to help me win my City Council seat. I took the unusual stance of not accepting any money from developers, law firms, unions, or even my beloved DSA. No organizational money, period.
I don’t include fundraising requests in my weekly emails. There are a few die-hard supporters who have maintained a monthly contribution to my campaign account even 8 months after the election, and I’m deeply grateful for this generosity, but I always feel like I should ask for money when and if I need it, rather than sit on a huge hoard.
That opinion is not common in Indianapolis.
This week, the Indy Star wrote an article about how the national DNC was swooping in to save the day for Indiana Democrats. The article mentions: “The Democratic National Committee told IndyStar it is investing nearly $70,000 to help the state party's goal of flipping at least four open House seats this year, with a particular focus on Central Indiana.” This sounds like a lot of money to outsiders!
I invite you, dear reader, to explore the public records that constitute our campaign finance reports for politicians in Indianapolis.
By my count, Indianapolis Democrats who don’t have another election until 2026 were sitting on $528,000 in unspent funds in their campaign finance accounts at the end of 2023.
Some of this money may have been spent by now - but then again, many politicians in the city have held fundraisers this year as well. Mayor Joe Hogsett’s inauguration gala in January featured a $10,000 ticket option for strong supporters, as one example.
Indianapolis Democrats, facing down the absolute horror of an Indiana Republican ticket that reads “TRUMP - BRAUN - ROKITA - BANKS”, absolutely cannot leave this money in their bank accounts rather than going to support the candidates fighting hard to defeat the Republican supermajority in the House and win statewide elections for Jennifer McCormick, Destiny Wells (or Beth White, depending on who our convention selects), Valerie McCray, and other candidates.
I don't talk much about my faith, but I think often about the Parable of the Talents - Matthew 25:14–30. Sitting on money rather than spending it to do good is downright sinful in my book. And this behavior certainly will never help us break the Republican supermajority in this state.
I’m putting my money where my mouth is. I no longer have the tech-bro money I had with my old day job, but I still donated $100.00 of my personal money to Katrina Owens on Friday. And tonight I emptied my campaign bank account and gave every dime to her as well. I’ll do that again before November.
Now I want to talk to you about matching funds.
Who can match my personal donation and help give Katrina the money she needs to keep building her team and growing her campaign to defeat Aaron Freeman?
Who, reading this message from outside my district, can challenge their own Councilors (or their Mayor, or their Prosecutor) to match their donations to a candidate they believe in?
Here’s a simple message you could use.
“Hi, elected official. My name is *name here*. I want Democrats to win across the state, and so today I donated X amount to Y candidate. I see on your campaign finance report from 2023 that you still have Z amount in the bank, even though you aren’t up for election this year. Will you consider matching my donation?”
When my advisors last year told me I would need to raise $30,000 to win my Council seat, that number seemed impossible to me. And to be fair, I only raised a bit under $25,000 and had to supplement with people power from volunteers. But the money was out there, even from small dollar donors. Hoosiers rose to the occasion, gave a few dollars at a time, and gave us all the funding we needed to win.
We won our campaign because we believed we could.
Let’s win some more campaigns this year the same damn way.
In love and solidarity,
Jesse