The Update Desk: Who Loves Me, Baby? (6)

This is the sixth update on my social experiment with the top ten 2020 Democratic presidential candidates and how they communicate with prospective supporters. (You can read the original post that started all of this silliness here, and prior updates here, here, here , here and here.)

Things slowed quite a bit this week, now that we're past the Q3 deadline. Here's this week's tally:

• 118 emails received, a drop of 76 compared to last week (and can I tell you, I appreciated that?);
• 83 (70.3%) were primarily requests for donations, even though there may have been some kind of underlying message;
• 30 of the emails were in the general/miscellaneous category; as with past weeks, the focus for these tended to be surveys, those darn sticker, merch, and so on. This week, several candidates mentioned LGBTQ rights because of the Supreme Court activity;  and 
• 5 emails were directly related to the October 15th debate; now that they've all qualified, the emails were looking for issues to focus on, or hosting debate watch parties. 

In order, the top five asking for money the most were Kamala Harris (84.6%), Cory Booker (78.6%), Julian Castro (77.8%), Elizabeth Warren (76.9%) and  Andrew Yang (70%). The other candidates, in descending order:  Amy Klobuchar (66.7%), Bernie Sanders (63.6%), Joe Biden (63.2%), Pete Buttigieg (60%), and Beto O'Rourke (57.1%). 

This week saw only one email related to guns - and it wasn't Beto this time, it was Biden. Bernie mentioned Medicare for All, pointing out that everyone should be entitled to the same great health care he received after suffering his heart attack.  

On other issues, we saw new plans from Warren, who introduced a new worker's rights plan, and Sanders, who rolled out his 'Money isn't Speech' plan.  And, both Buttigieg and Warren released plans for LGBTQ equality.

Not surprisingly, Joe Biden spent a lot of time talking about Donald Trump, including announcing (later than several of his counterparts) that the president should be impeached. 

Andrew Yang, who had a really good Q3 from a fundraising perspective, devoted some time to pointing out media bias, including leaving him out of graphics showing the top money raisers (Booker, who raised a couple million less than Yang, made the list) and how he and his plans are not getting the attention they deserve given his support. Honestly, I don't blame him.

Warren made mention of pregnancy discrimination, reiterating her story of  "being shown the door" when she was a young, visibly pregnant teacher, which has recently come under scrutiny. She asked women to share their stories with her, and if it goes as it has for many news outlets that asked the same question, she's going to get a lot of them.

And finally, our email of the week. I was intrigued by one from the Harris campaign that referenced an app called TikTok and cow videos, but in the end, I chose this one from Mayor Pete's campaign for the win.  

Hi there,

We’re running a massive weekend of outreach this weekend -- we’re calling it “Boot-Pledge-Pledge.”

All across the country, members of Team Pete (that’s you!) are gathering to knock on doors, make phone calls, reach out to your friends and family, and in some cases, collect signatures to help get Pete on the ballot. We’re asking people to pledge their support for Pete. (See what we did there?)

Will you sign up to make calls this Boot-Pledge-Pledge weekend?

We’re making calls all weekend into the early states to identify Pete supporters, and we’d love for you to join. Click here to sign up to share Pete’s bold vision for the future, and we'll be in touch with all the information you need to get started.

We’re so excited for this Boot-Pledge-Pledge weekend, and really hope you can join us.

See you soon, and thanks!!

Yes, I saw what you did there.