Good morning. Welcome to Axios today. It's Wednesday, July 20th. I'm Nailibudu. Today,

police monitoring private surveillance video. Plus, the house votes to protect same-sex marriage.

But first, the GOP's losing battle for the small dollar political donor is today's one big thing.

With the midterms less than four months away, Republicans are lagging way behind Democrats

in grassroots fundraising. Democrats in the 10 most competitive Senate races are outraising

Republicans by more than $100 million with small dollar donors. Axios political reporter

Lachlan Marquet is tracking GOP fundraising efforts. Hey, Lachlan. Hey, how you doing?

Lachlan, why are Democrats appealing more to grassroots donors?

You know, they've had more success at this small dollar fundraising for a while. We really saw it

in the 2020 cycle. Their Senate candidates in particular were raising massive sums through

donations of under $200. Republicans have seen some success there. In particular, former President

Donald Trump has been particularly successful in candidates who can successfully tie themselves

to his brand, also do pretty well. But in general, Democrats are much more successful at

courting that amount of small dollar support. The explanations for that can vary depending on who you

talk to. But the most common one is generally that Democrats have just been a cycle or two ahead

over the last 20 years in developing their digital infrastructure. And that's really where you see

a lot of the most potent small dollar fundraising operations. How are Republicans doing with

big donors? So generally, they are raising way more money. You know, most of the biggest donors

this cycle in terms of just the sheer amount they're giving are Republicans, folks like Ken Griffon,

Charles Schwab, folks like that are giving, you know, millions or even tens of millions of dollars.

So they're out raising both of their Democratic competitors. The RNC, the NRC, the NRSC,

they're all raising record sums. So when it comes to high dollar donors, Republicans continue

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