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WinRed

Website:

winred.com
Location:

Arlington, VA
Formation:

2019
Type:

For Profit
Founder:

Gerrit Lansing

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WinRed is an online fundraising platform designed to support Republican candidates, campaigns, and committees across the United States. WinRed was established in 2019 as a response to ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s digital fundraising platform that was founded in 2004. WinRed is endorsed by the Republican National Committee. 1

Since its founding in 2019, WinRed has helped Republicans raise $5.6 billion across three two-year election cycles. 2

Activities

WinRed is an online platform that allows Republican candidates, campaigns, and committees to raise money to win elections. WinRed was established in 2019 to help close the gap in the Democratic grassroots fundraising efforts of the ActBlue platform. WinRed allows Republicans to raise small-dollar contributions through its infrastructure. Since its founding, WinRed has been used by Donald Trump’s 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns, other Republican presidential primary candidates, Republican Senators, and Republican House members. WinRed is also used by state-level campaigns and thousands of Republican candidates at every level of elected office. WinRed states that it has received contributions from over 8.8 million individual donors. 3

WinRed’s platform allows donors to set up recurring donations, give to multiple candidates at once, and create a team page to lead efforts to raise money for specific candidates. Donors can easily search for candidates and committees to support with financial donations and in some cases, merchandise sales. For candidates and campaigns, in addition to facilitating monetary donations, WinRed provides a platform for selling merchandise featuring on-demand printing and shipping.  1

The four largest Republican online fundraising entities joined WinRed in 2019, ahead of the 2020 elections: President Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential re-election campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). 4 Soon after, top RNC officials told Republican candidates and committees that they needed to use WinRed in order to receive financial and other support from the RNC. 5

Financials

All donations made through WinRed are charged a 3.94 percent processing fee. Donations made to federal committees pass through the WinRed PAC, a conduit PAC, before being donated to a specific candidate or organization within ten days. Donations made to state-level committees are processed by WinRed Technical Services and deposited directly into the candidate or committee’s merchant account, without going through the WinRed PAC. 6

In the 2024 election cycle, WinRed PAC raised $1,686,456,166.  7 WinRed distributed these donations to joint fundraising committees ($306,479,829), federal candidates ($286,056,700), national parties ($285,174,891), committees ($30,967,886), state and local parties ($13,307,469), and state and local candidates ($8,963). 8 For comparison, in the 2024 election cycle, ActBlue raised $3,821,173,165. 9

People

Gerrit Lansing is the founder of Revv, an online donation platform for organizations and causes. Revv launched WinRed in 2019. Lansing is the founder of the digital department at the National Republican Congressional Committee and is a former chief digital officer at the Republican National Committee. Lansing formerly worked as the press secretary for the House Budget Committee and as new media director for then-U.S. Representative Peter Roskam (R-IL). 10

Benjamin Ottenhoff is a Republican strategist and the treasurer of the WinRed PAC. 7

References

  1. “About.” WinRed. Accessed August 11, 2025. https://winred.com/about.
  2. “The WinRed Effect: WinRed’s Impact on the Small Dollar Ecosystem.” WinRed, August 10, 2025. Accessed August 11, 2025. https://winred.com/blog/memo.
  3. “The WinRed Effect: WinRed’s Impact on the Small Dollar Ecosystem.” WinRed August 10,2025. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://winred.com/blog/memo.
  4. “WinRed Launches New Online Fundraising Platform to Help Republicans Win In 2020.” WinRed, June 24, 2019. Accessed August 11, 2025. https://winred.com/blog/launch.
  5. Crabtree, Susan. “Top GOP Senate Campaigns Aren’t Using WinRed.” RealClear Politics, July 24, 2019. Accessed August 11, 2025. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/07/24/top_gop_senate_campaigns_arent_rushing_to_winred__140851.html.
  6. “Where Does My Donation Go?” WinRed. Accessed August 11, 2025. https://support.winred.com/en/articles/3096290-where-does-my-donation-go.
  7. “PAC Profile: WinRed.” OpenSecrets. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/winred/C00694323/summary/2024.
  8. “WinRed PAC Expenditures.” OpenSecrets. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/winred/C00694323/expenditures/2024.
  9. “PAC Profile: ActBlue.” OpenSecrets. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/actblue/C00401224/summary/2024.
  10. “About.” Gerrit Lansing.” Accessed August 8, 2025. https://gerritlansing.org/about-2/.
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