Following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death on Friday at age 87, Democratic donors came together to raise over $30 million for Democratic candidates and causes.
As the New York Times reports, Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue received a record-breaking number of donations after the news broke. Single-hour donation records were broken at around 9 p.m. ET last night with $6.2 million in donations, only for the record to be broken an hour later with $6.3 million. Altogether, donors helped raise over $100,000 per minute, which is the most since the last night of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 20.
It wasn't just ActBlue that received a huge surge in donations, however. Get Mitch or Die Trying, a fund created by Crooked Media to donate to Democratic candidates in highly contested Senate races, received millions after the news of RBG's passing broke. Tommy Vietor, one of the Crooked Media's co-founders and a former member of President Obama's administration, confirmed the figures via Twitter.
"The conventional wisdom is that the Supreme Court only motivates Republicans, but these fund-raising totals demonstrate that that has changed," Vietor said. The Get Mitch or Die Trying fund has so far raised $12 million since RBG's death, the Mary Sue reports. Focused on helping turn the Senate Blue, the money will be evenly split between candidates from Georgia, Alabama, and Colorado among others.
There's been a lot of concern regarding whether President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will confirm a successor before the possible end of their terms. In fact, it only took a couple of hours after Ginsburg died for McConnell to announce a Trump nominee will get a vote in the Senate this year.
When Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died in Feb. 2016 during the Obama administration years, McConnell said he would not allow a hearing or vote on another nominee until the next President assumed office. It's worth noting that it'll be a race against time for McConnell, as it took Brett Kavanaugh almost 90 days before he could be confirmed.
