Blue America has a new contest starting tomorrow. We’re raising money for Jamie Raskin’s Democracy Summer and someone is going to win a rare, collectible gold record. We’ll announce the contest specifics in the morning. And when we have a winner a week later, we’ll announce that too. I was fascinated today— though not really shocked or even surprised— when the NY Times exposed Trump’s contest scams that have no winners. There have been dozens of them offering autographed merch or even trips down to Mar-a-Lago to meet Señor T in person. “But most of the contests,” wrote Karen Yourish and Lazaro Gamio, “seem to have no winners, and the campaign did not confirm or provide evidence that the club members have had any opportunity to advise the former president or that Trump is paying any attention to small donor rosters.”
The New York Times looked at some 7,400 emails sent by the Trump campaign since Trump entered the presidential race. About one-third of the messages dangled an incentive to entice recipients to make a small donation.
Here are the 41 sweepstakes that were offered in Trump campaign emails as of last month:
Whether they are written by Trump himself or by members of his staff, as is likely the case, the tone of the emails is generally consistent with Trump’s manner in public appearances and on social media: both chummy and alarmist.
To be sure, emails using sensationalistic language, and even manipulative tactics, are not unique to the Trump campaign. A study published in the journal Big Data & Society of thousands of political emails sent during the 2020 election cycle found that — in order to nudge recipients to open emails — campaigns frequently use subject lines that include clickbait or give the impression that a message is a continuation of an ongoing conversation. The Trump campaign has used these techniques, sending emails about joining its “Deadline Donor List” with subject lines like “Alert: (1) New Message - Action Required” and “Confirm Payment Information.”
Trump’s campaign team may not be alone in some elements of its email strategy. But both in sheer number (about 75 emails per week, on average, throughout this campaign cycle) and in syntax, the former president’s campaign emails stand out. They swing wildly between doomsday tirades and deeply affectionate language — then, often, dangle a sweetener to donate.
A missive sent in May, for instance, ticked through a short list of Trump’s current grievances: “the ILLEGAL RAID on my beautiful Mar-a-Lago,” “the RIGGED BIDEN TRIALS forcing me off the campaign trail,” and “the RUTHLESS ATTEMPTS TO SILENCE MAGA & DESTROY AMERICA.”
But that was not all that was on Trump’s mind. “You are the reason I wake up every morning. I love you to the moon and back, and I really mean that,” he wrote. “So before the day is over, I want to see your name as a member of the first ever TRUMP DIAMOND CLUB.”
Enter to Win (Maybe)!
Sweepstakes are a near-constant fixture of Trump’s campaign email corpus. In the 673 days of Mr. Trump’s current candidacy covered by The Times’ analysis, his campaign ran at least one active contest— and sometimes several simultaneously— for 446 of them.
Most of the Trump campaign’s contests have promised once-in-a-lifetime experiences: V.I.P. trips to Trump’s private resorts, campaign rallies and fund-raising receptions. Contest prizes have included round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations, and a photo with Trump for the winner and a guest, with approximate retail values running up to $24,000.
A smaller handful of sweepstakes have offered memorabilia like signed MAGA hats, autographed footballs and even the American flag displayed on stage during Trump’s speech at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference.
In all, the combined approximate retail value of the contest prizes offered by the Trump campaign since Trump announced his candidacy totals more than $180,000.
The Times sent the campaign a detailed list of every contest it had promoted in fund-raising emails from Nov. 15, 2022, to Sept. 16, 2024, and asked the campaign to confirm that each contest had a winner and to provide the names of the winners. The Times also asked the campaign to provide photos of the winners with Trump in cases in which a photo was part of the prize, and a link to a “personalized” Christmas message from Trump offered as a prize in December 2022.
The campaign did not confirm that each contest had a winner. It also did not provide winners’ names, photos or a link to the Christmas video.
…It remains possible that each of these more than 40 contests had a winner. But if they did not, the Trump campaign may have crossed a legal line.
… In response to questions from The Times about the offers the Trump campaign includes in its emails, the campaign responded with a statement from a senior adviser, Brian Hughes. “President Trump and our campaign have a strong and effective fund-raising operation that includes digital platforms,” he wrote. “President Trump’s movement to save our nation inspires hardworking men and women from all over America to play a financial role in our campaign and MAGA movement.”
To encourage those donations, Trump’s email strategy alternates between scaremongering and statements of devotion to the reader that are sometimes startlingly personal, including frequent declarations of love.
At times, it has even appeared to include reverse psychology. Mr. Trump’s emails depend so heavily on a perception of intimacy that he sometimes asks his supporters not to spread the word — a highly unusual move for a political candidate.
“Please do NOT share this email,” Mr. Trump warned in an offer to accept an “EXTREMELY RARE” invitation for “PRIORITY ACCESS TO BECOME A 2023 ULTRA MAGA MEMBER” before it supposedly expired at midnight.
The campaign sent the same offer at least nine more times over the following two weeks.
Not unrelated, Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, wrote yesterday that her Uncle Scammy “has always been for sale. It used to be shocking how many people were willing to prop him up in the hopes of profiting off his increasingly seamy ventures. But thanks to a morally bankrupt Republican Party and our degraded corporate media, Donald remains alarmingly close to the kind of power that’s worth shelling out massive amounts of money to be close to— and benefit from. Any person or entity, from Putin to Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf, willing to throw Donald a few bucks for a licensing fee or a Trump Tower condo, has gained access and influence. Given this decades-long pattern, it’s not surprising that the world’s richest fascist, South African jumping bean Elon Musk, would also be interested in purchasing a few shares in a man who is willing to sell whatever he can get his hands on— whether it’s steaks or American national security— because he values money more than anything. In exchange for Donald’s willingness to throw Musk the keys to the federal government, Musk is throwing a considerable fortune, as well as the weight of Twitter’s influence, behind the Republican candidate. For him, it’s a safe bet because he knows, if Donald is elected, he’ll do anything Musk wants him to do.”
The new Blue America contest starts tomorrow morning and it will run all week. Check back in the morning. Kind of a hint (although we're not giving away a million dollars this week):
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