More than 1,000 reports filed with government agencies and consumer advocacy groups reviewed by CNN, along with an analysis of campaign finance data and interviews with dozens of contributors and their family members, show how deceptive political fundraisers have victimized hundreds of elderly Americans and misled those battling dementia or other cognitive impairments into giving away millions of dollars — far more than they ever intended. Some unintentionally joined the ranks of the top grassroots political donors in the country as they tapped into retirement savings and went into debt, contributing six-figure sums through thousands of transactions.
To provide a snapshot of who these vulnerable donors are and how much money they have lost to increasingly aggressive fundraising campaigns, reporters reached out to more than 300 of the biggest and most frequent small-dollar political donors and their family members. Through these interviews and consumer complaints, reporters collected the accounts of more than 50 unwitting elderly donors and traced the path of where their money went.
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While this is a small fraction of the billions raised by political campaigns, for many of the individuals who made the donations, the sums represented huge portions of their life savings.
Deceptive fundraising tactics, including those that trick elderly donors, were exposed in the wake of the 2020 election. While studies show that older Americans tend to lean more Republican, both parties have continued to rake in donations from elderly voters. And mainstream Republican candidates have only doubled down on this strategy, using more aggressive and predatory tactics than those used by Democrats, according to donor complaints, interviews with experts and a review of solicitations. The Republican fundraising machine has been subject to more than 800 complaints to the Federal Trade Commission since 2022 — nearly seven times more than the number of complaints lodged against the other side.
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On the Democratic side, much of the money went to left-leaning political action committees known as PACs, not mainstream Democratic candidates. The Progressive Turnout Project and its affiliated group, Stop Republicans, took in the most, with roughly $150,000 coming from the vulnerable donors identified by CNN. President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign was not among the top recipients, taking in only about 10% of the $400,000 Trump brought in from those elderly donors.
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The fundraising operations that have solicited money from vulnerable senior citizens use either WinRed or ActBlue, two juggernaut digital platforms that unite hundreds of political groups and campaigns under a single umbrella. Each platform charges a fee of about 4% of every transaction, although WinRed is a for-profit company and ActBlue is a nonprofit. Campaign finance records show that the two groups took in more than $100 million in fees from federal campaigns and political committees in the last two years alone.
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The controversial feature that fools many donors is a pre-checked box campaigns use to automatically authorize recurring donations. Donors often don’t realize they need to uncheck that box, so while attempting to make a one-time small donation, they are unknowingly signing up for weekly or monthly recurring donations. Sometimes it takes months or years before they realize a campaign has been regularly charging their credit card or taking money out of their bank account.
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The FEC would not comment on WinRed or ActBlue specifically but said in a 2023 report on legislative recommendations that it had been regularly hearing from donors who had signed up for recurring donations without their knowledge or consent. The report noted consumers had often attempted to cancel the donations without success before contacting agency staff for help. Agency officials said the outcry from donors "strongly suggests that many contributors are unaware of the ‘pre-checked boxes’ and are surprised by the already completed transactions appearing on account statements." But it said it didn’t have the authority to ban the practice, and that Congress should introduce legislation to change this — a recommendation agency officials first made after the New York Times reported on the issue in 2021.
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