Want to Make a Quick Buck? Fundraise for Republican Presidential Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy
- The Indian American entrepreneur-turned-politician claims that joining ‘Vivek’s Kitchen Cabinet’empowers everyday people.
Want to make money? Fundraise for Vivek Ramaswamy. The 37-year-old Indian American GOP presidential candidate has launched a new initiative in which supporters who help raise funds for his White House bid will earn 10 percent of whatever amount they bring in.
The initiative — “Vivek’s Kitchen Cabinet” — is billed as a means of empowering everyday people as his campaign strives for small-dollar fundraising. “If someone else is getting rich on this, it might as well be you,” he says in the July 10 announcement.
In addition to the payment guarantee, the program will give incentives to fundraisers, such as invitations to campaign events or a phone call with Ramaswamy. Noting that political bundlers collect campaign contributions from other donors, such as friends and acquaintances, often in exchange for access to the campaign, he is “breaking up that cartel,” he tweeted alongside an announcement video.“A small oligopoly of political fundraisers is already making an ungodly amount of $$ on this election. It’s disgusting. I’m breaking up that cartel.”
His campaign also announced that he is closing in on reaching 65,000 individual donors. The average donation size to the campaign is $30.80, as reported by Axios.
Ramaswamy told Politico that his new fundraising concept is “a revolution.” In a statement, he told the publication that he was “stunned” to learn how much money is made in politics. “I found out that most professional political fundraisers get a cut of the money they raise,” he said. “Why should they monopolize political fundraising? They shouldn’t.”
Supporters will undergo a background check before being issued an affiliate link to share to raise money for the candidate, his general consultant, Ben Yoho, told Politico. Each participant in the program will be given a unique donation link, which they would then post online to solicit donations directly to the campaign. All donations are recorded and documented by campaign staff, while each citizen bundler’s unique link would be used to track the donations they bring in.
Axios calls the launch “the latest of “Ramaswamy’s aggressive fundraising strategy to stand out and connect with grassroots donors in the crowded Republican primary.” Politico says the initiative shows how “finding small-dollar donors has proven to be a difficult task for Republican candidates in recent years, particularly during the 2022 midterms, as former President Donald Trump has dominated the small-dollar fundraising sphere.”
Newsweek compared the initiative to “the same type of small-dollar donation scheme popularized by Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign for president, emphasizing grassroots fundraising as a barometer of grassroots enthusiasm for a candidate’s campaign.”
According to Politico, “Ramaswamy will continue to raise small-dollar donations directly through the Republican fundraising platform WinRed, though the initiative will be housed separately, on a platform called e-Donation.”