NDP dominated 2020 fundraising ahead of election call

Even without the snap election win, 2020 has been a very good year for the BC NDP — especially when it comes to fundraising.

The party pulled in $1.96 million between July 1 and September 30, according to quarterly financial disclosures released by Elections BC — about half a million more than it raised in the first half of 2020. Year-to-date, the party has received $3.42 million in donations.

The BC Liberals are more than $1 million behind the NDP in annual fundraising — the party received $1.15 million in donations July through September, just over half the NDP’s haul.

Q3 is by far the best quarter the Liberal party has had in 2020; after raking in $638,200 in the first quarter of the year, the Liberals raised just $238,400 in Q2 after pausing their fundraising efforts due to the pandemic. The party pulled in just a total of around $2 million as of September 30.

The BC Green Party, which wrapped up its leadership race in mid-September, received just over $327,700 in third quarter donations — more than half of its year-to-date total of $575,800.

During the election campaign, the Greens celebrated historic fundraising, reporting over $834,750 in donations between the conclusion of the leadership race on September 14 and October 22. Neither the NDP or Liberals provided fundraising totals during that time frame when queried by BC Today.

Parties could spend up to $4.6 million on this year’s election campaign. Election financing reports are due to Elections BC by January 22.

Donors big and small back NDP
No matter which way you slice it, the NDP dominated Q3 fundraising, receiving nearly double the overall number of donations as the Liberals and more than four times as many as the Greens.

The NDP received 12,339 donations in Q3, 10,349 of them in amounts of less than $250 — more than double the number of under-$250 donations the Liberals received.

The NDP also cleaned up on larger donations with 1,990 contributions of more than $250 compared to the 1,224 the Liberals reported. The NDP received two donations of more than this year’s annual contribution limit — one in the amount of $20,000. Both came from estates; the legislated cap on annual donations does not apply to wills made before 2018.

The Greens received 272 donations greater than $250 and 2,605 below that amount.

The maximum amount individuals can donate to any one political party this year is $1,253.15 — adjusted for inflation from the $1,250 contribution cap set in 2018.

The second half of this year’s vote-share subsidy was paid on July 1 — $759,500 to the NDP, $797,000 to the Liberals and $332,000 to the Greens.

In what are set to be its final two years, the subsidy will drop in 2021 from $2 per vote received during the 2017 election to $1.75.