Matthew Hurtt, the chairman of the Virginia-based Arlington County Republican Committee, has been taking the brunt from Trump supporters who feel they're being ripped off by WinRed, the political donations platform endorsed by the former president.
Hurtt tells CNBC that he's received numerous emails from donors who are demanding that the Arlington County GOP stop making recurring withdrawals from their accounts — despite the fact that his organization has not been on the receiving end of any such donations.
The reason for their confusion, writes CNBC, is that "when WinRed processes a contribution to a Republican campaign, the charge shows up on the donor’s credit card or bank statement as a payment to 'WINRED www.GOP.com, Arlington VA,'" which has nothing to do with the organization that Hurtt chairs.
However, Hurtt has noticed a pattern in the people contacting him that he finds to be troubling.
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"Every one of them has told me a similar story: elderly, sometimes dementia, and don’t remember donating month after month," he told CNBC. "As a county committee chairman who struggles to raise money, it infuriates me."
Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, tells CNBC that he's not surprised to see older voters getting unwittingly pulled into making recurring donations to Trump.
“Older folks are generally more vulnerable and they’re often more easily taken in," he said. “You see with former President Trump, that he’s fundraising off his indictments. He’s fundraising off of Valentine’s Day. These are the type of emails someone who is elderly is getting."
However, CNBC also notes that there's some evidence that Trump's powers to separate elderly small-dollar donors from their cash has weakened in recent years.
"In 2019, Trump’s campaign committee collected $72 million in donations of $200 or less, according to OpenSecrets," notes CNBC. "But fast forward several years, and from November 2022 through the end of last year, Trump’s presidential campaign collected just $27 million in donations from those who gave $200 or less, according to the data."
