Texas AG goes after Democratic fundraising as GOP outspent in key races

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday called on federal regulators to make it more difficult for donors to use ActBlue, a popular progressive fundraising platform that has collected record donations for the Harris campaign.

Recent polling by the University of Texas shows Vice President Harris within 5 points of former President Trump in Texas — the closest a Democrat has been to winning the state since the days of Bill Clinton.

In a letter to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Paxton accused the platform of failing to keep off “straw donors,” people who use another person’s money to make a donation in their own name.

“Our investigation into ActBlue has uncovered facts indicating that bad actors can illegally interfere in American elections by disguising political donations,” Paxton said in a statement.

ActBlue targets small-dollar donations and has been a major part of the Democratic fundraising apparatus, collecting an estimated $1.5 billion from about 7 million donors.

While that influx of cash was split among nearly 19,000 campaigns, a disproportionate amount has gone to the highest profile races. In just the first few days of the Harris campaign, for example, donors gave her $200 million through the platform, per ActBlue’s account on the social platform X.

That’s more than the difference between Harris’ haul so far — about $1 billion — and Trump’s $853 million.

Democratic Rep. Colin Allred (Texas) is also well ahead of incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in money raised so far. Allred took in $30 million in the third quarter of 2024, compared to Cruz’s $21 million.

In parallel with this disparity in fundraising — and a broader GOP push toward accusing Democrats, without evidence, of rampant election fraud — Republican attorneys general have pushed federal regulators to tighten restrictions on ActBlue donations.

The Paxton investigation has followed a similar trajectory to his parallel dive into widely discredited reports of voting by undocumented immigrants, which appear to have originated with unverified social media posts by right-wing media personalities.

The first accusations against progressive fundraising platforms date back to a March post by the right-wing Virginia Project, which describes itself as “a strategic political operations plan to eliminate the Democrat Party and associated threats to the security and well-being of the people.”

But only after Harris’s record late-July haul did the claims go mainstream. Days after she received $200 million on ActBlue, right-wing influencers including Charlie Kirk called on GOP state leaders to investigate the platform.

”ActBlue raises from all fifty states. We have fifty state AGs. When will one of them take action?” Kirk, who runs conservative youth group Turning Points USA, wrote on X in late July, just after Harris’s record-setting influx of donations to the platform.

Just a week after Kirk’s post, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) announced an investigation of the platform.

At the time, ActBlue called it “nothing more than a partisan political attack and scare tactic to undermine the power of Democratic and progressive small-dollar donors.”

While ActBlue didn’t address Paxton’s letter directly, a spokesperson for the company told The Hill on Monday that “we are aware of recent attempts to spread misinformation about our platform.”

The company “rigorously protects our donors’ security, maintains strong protections, and enforces strict anti-fraud compliance policies,” the spokesperson added.

A bill introduced in September by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) would require political committees to collect CVVs — the three- or four-digit “card verification value” on the back of a credit card — along with political donations.

In practice, the legislation — which Steil wrote was specifically targeted at ActBlue — would effectively bar the platforms from accepting donations by prepaid gift cards or debit cards, making it much harder for people without bank accounts or credit lines to donate. Last week, ActBlue hired a prominent lobbying group in Washington, D.C., to fight the bill.

In one sense, Steil’s law was obsolete when he filed it: In August, ActBlue agreed to begin collecting CVVs.

This has not been enough to satisfy Paxton. On Monday, he called on the FEC to add further barriers: specifically, an additional cross-check to make sure that donors’ information had been cross-checked with the bank that had issued their card.

In a statement, Paxton warned that “foreign contributions or contributions in excess of legal limits could be unlawfully funneled to political campaigns, bypassing campaign finance regulations.” 

“I am calling on the FEC to immediately begin rulemaking to secure our elections from any criminal actors exploiting these vulnerabilities,” he added.

Paxton joined 19 other Republican state attorneys general who attacked the platform in their own letter earlier this month.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird warned of “illegal donations” that, “if left unchecked, may allow donation schemes, including from foreign countries, that will tip the scales of our elections.”

This story was updated at 1:20 p.m. on Oct. 22.