Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican senator, raised nearly $4 million in the eight days after he announced his presidential campaign, according to The Wall Street Journal. What’s important about that number is that almost all of it came in amounts of less than $100.  That’s a big change for Mr. Cruz. During his Senate run in 2012, 80 percent of the money he collected from individuals were in donations of $200 or more, the threshold for when donor’s names are listed on Federal Election Commission reports.  Assuming The Journal’s report is correct that about 95 percent of the donations raised in late March came in donations of less than $100, it could mean that Mr. Cruz has raised more money from small-dollar donors in eight days (an estimate is somewhere above $3 million) than he did for his Senate committee during the previous four years ($2.9 million). We won’t know the breakdown until April 15.  Running for president does provide a much different platform for fund-raising than a Senate campaign does, with live-streaming of Mr. Cruz’s announcement at Liberty University and the media attention of being the only major candidate officially in the race. But Mr. Cruz’s early ability to capitalize on the attention by bringing in money from small-dollar donors has two long-term implications.  Nearly all of the money he is raising at this point can be spent on the Republican primary. Not so with all of the money raised from those dinners where individual donors give the maximum amount: $2,700 each for the primary and the general elections. Any money given by a donor above the first $2,700 can’t be used until the recipient is the nominee. While Mitt Romney was stockpiling maximum contributions in 2012, Barack Obama was going back again and again to donors who had yet to reach the primary limit. Both kinds of contributions are useful, but primary money can be used now.  There’s hardly a chance he can maintain a 95 percent ratio, but even around 50 percent would be an achievement. And if Mr. Cruz can continue his early small-dollar success, it strengthens his argument that he represents grass-roots conservatism better than a candidate with stronger ties to the Republican establishment like Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor.  Other Republicans have tried this. Herman Cain, for example, raised more than half of the money for his brief presidential campaign in 2012 from contributors who gave less than $200. Several other G.O.P. also-rans got sizable chunks of money from the small-dollar crowd, including Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.  The risk for Mr. Cruz is that he is unable to sustain the enthusiasm of those initial donors, forcing him to compete with Mr. Bush and other Republicans for high-dollar donors. Nearly two-thirds of Mr. Romney’s donors in 2012 gave at least $1,000, according to the Campaign Finance Institute. The percentages for the rest of the field were much smaller: 12 percent for Mr. Paul, 7 percent for Mr. Gingrich and 6 percent for Mr. Santorum.  The model for Mr. Cruz’s campaign fund-raising is Mr. Obama, who succeeded at both the low and high ends of the donor spectrum. Mr. Cruz’s first F.E.C. report, due April 15, won’t be a definitive marker of his progress, but it will show early strength among small-dollar donors. The more important reports will come later when we can ascertain how sustainable that strength is.
Early strength in large numbers of people giving small amounts bolsters his grass-roots credentials. The question is, can he maintain this pattern?