Since its conception Act Blue has raised 26.2 million dollars online and has earned a reputation for being a great asset to Democratic fundraising. In the first half of 2007 Democrats collectively raised a total of 44.3 million dollars more than Republicans. Online contributions have played a big part in this gap.

In response to the Democrats impressive fundraising Republicans are reacting competitively by establishing their own online contribution channels. Rightroots, Big Red Tent and Slatecard.com have all emerged as new ways to connect Republicans to their candidates. Rightroots at present is a donations avenue featuring news, information and links to a number of Republican candidates and conservative issues. Big Red Tent takes active approach by allowing participants to nominate their candidates by providing support and feedback through a process they call stumping and voting. This narrows the number of candidates featured but allows everyone an opportunity to not only financially support their candidate but also provide a reason as to why. Slatecard.com is not up and running yet but will allow members to develop their own portfolios of candidates by “tagging” them with facts that will help to simplify the understanding on where candidates stand on a number of issues. This will be effective due to the fact that you can share these portfolios with other online networks like MySpace and Facebook.

As the campaigns progress and the election nears it will be interesting to see the fundraising competition continue and see if this new approach succeeds for the Republicans in a realm dominated thus far by the Democrats.