Digital Campaign Tools and Performance in Virginia’s 2025 Elections

Executive Summary

Republicans and Democrats approached digital campaigning in Virginia’s 2025 House of Delegates elections with very different levels of infrastructure and sophistication. Across 168 races, Democrats continued to dominate online fundraising, particularly among small-dollar donors, while Republicans struggled to convert digital presence into electoral gains.

Among the most competitive contests (defined as races decided by margins between 11 percentage points either way) Republicans lost 13 seats, with margins ranging from -1.4% to -10.6%. Another eight GOP campaigns finished within ten points. Democrats outperformed Republicans online in nearly every measurable category, from fundraising and email list-building to Facebook advertising and donor volume.

Republican candidates who invested in professional website infrastructure performed better than their peers. 

The data point to a widening digital divide not just in dollars raised, but in operational capacity, including the ability to build, test, and optimize online campaigns.

Findings

Overall Party Performance

Democrats maintained a dominant position in online fundraising and digital operations. On average, they raised more than five times as much as Republicans from small-dollar donors and had 17 times more individual grassroots donors.

Republican campaigns faced structural disadvantages in grassroots fundraising capacity. The party’s donor ecosystem appears to rely more heavily on high-dollar contributors, while Democrats continue to expand their base of small donors.

Website Platforms and Performance

Website platform choice was one of the clearest indicators of campaign strength in the competitive districts. Among the twenty-one races decided within eleven points, candidates using WordPress formed the largest group, accounting for nearly half of all campaigns. Eighteen candidates in these districts relied on WordPress, and twelve of them won. Their average margin of +2.2 percent was the strongest of any platform and reflects both the flexibility of WordPress and the professional support typically associated with it.

Candidates using Wix made up the next largest group, with eleven campaigns, but their results were noticeably weaker. Only four of the eleven Wix campaigns won, and their average margin was -1 percent. Squarespace performed even worse. Eight candidates used it in competitive races, and just two were successful. Their average margin of -3.4 percent was the lowest among the mainstream platforms.

In the closest races, campaigns using WordPress performed better than those built on Wix or Squarespace. The differences do not necessarily imply causation, but they strongly suggest that campaigns with the resources or staffing to deploy a more robust platform tended to be more competitive. WordPress sites typically require professional design or campaign tech staff, while Wix and Squarespace lend themselves to self-service setups.

Among all Republican candidates statewide, those using WordPress had an average margin of +1.5%, compared with -5% for Wix users and -7% for Squarespace users.

Website Performance

Website performance audits using Google’s PageSpeed scores revealed modest but notable differences between the parties. On average, Republican campaign sites performed slightly better, with desktop scores of 82 compared with 80 for Democrats, and mobile scores of 64 compared with 60 for Democrats. These differences are not large enough to imply a structural advantage, but they indicate that Republican sites tended to load somewhat faster across devices.

The contrast became more pronounced within the Republican field. Campaigns that won their races had markedly stronger desktop performance, averaging a score of 92. Those that lost averaged 70. While this does not establish causation, the pattern suggests that higher-performing websites may reflect stronger digital execution overall, offering voters a smoother browsing experience and giving campaigns more opportunities to engage supporters effectively.

Domain Names and URL Structure

A campaign’s website address offered another small, but measurable signal of digital professionalism. Across all 174 candidates reviewed, the structure of the campaign URL correlated with electoral performance. 

Candidates with their full name in their URL outperformed those using only their last name by roughly 13 points and those using only their first name by 20 points on average.

Domain name structure appears to be less an independent driver of voter behavior and more a proxy for campaign professionalism and digital hygiene.

Campaigns that use full-name URLs likely benefit from:

• Clearer search engine alignment
• Easier name recognition
• Stronger consistency across platforms

The evidence does not show a causal link between URL structure and vote margin, but it suggests a correlation with broader organizational strength.

Email Infrastructure

Email remains the backbone of digital fundraising and volunteer engagement, and in this area Democrats demonstrated a clear operational advantage. In the competitive districts, every Democratic campaign collected email addresses on its website, reflecting a disciplined approach to list-building. Among Republicans, the rate was noticeably lower. Sixteen of twenty-one GOP campaigns gathered emails, leaving nearly a quarter of competitive Republican candidates without a basic collection mechanism on their landing pages.

Authentication practices showed a similar pattern. Fourteen of the twenty-one Democratic campaigns in competitive races had properly configured SPF records, compared with thirteen Republican campaigns. While the difference in competitive seats was modest, it widened when looking statewide. Across all races, Democrats were more consistent both in collecting email addresses (83 percent versus 65 percent for Republicans) and in implementing authentication protocols (69 percent versus 59 percent).

These details matter. Proper configuration of SPF and related protocols such as DKIM strengthens deliverability and protects against spoofing, which in turn supports reliable fundraising and communication. The disparities suggest that Democratic campaigns were generally more thorough in establishing the foundational elements of a functioning email program, while Republican practices were more uneven.

‍

Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising revealed one of the sharpest contrasts between the two parties. In the competitive districts, Democrats ran more diverse and sustained advertising programs, and this activity aligned closely with electoral success. Sixteen of the twenty-one Democratic candidates ran Facebook ads, and every Democrat who won their race had been active on the platform. Their campaigns deployed an average of thirty-four distinct ads, reflecting regular testing and message variation.

Republicans appeared active on the surface — nineteen of the twenty-one GOP candidates ran at least some Facebook advertising — but their programs were far less robust. Only six of the Republicans who won their races had run ads on the platform, and those who did averaged just nineteen ads. The overall pattern suggests that while Republicans participated in digital advertising, Democrats treated it as a core component of their campaign operations.

The gap became even more pronounced in the districts that flipped from Republican to Democrat. In all thirteen seats that changed hands, Democrats outperformed Republicans in both money raised and Facebook reach. Republicans in those districts averaged $842,821 in fundraising and generated roughly 151,000 Facebook impressions. Their Democratic opponents raised more than twice as much — an average of $2.2 million — and reached more than three times as many voters with approximately 525,000 impressions. These discrepancies illustrate not only greater investment by Democratic campaigns, but also a more mature and wide-scale digital advertising strategy that provided substantially broader visibility in the final stretch of the campaign.

Although Republicans technically ran ads in more races, Democrats displayed greater diversity and frequency of creative testing. The correlation between ad activity and victory among Democrats is striking.

Fundraising Outcomes

The most pronounced asymmetry between the parties remains financial. Democrats outraised Republicans at both the top and bottom of the donor pyramid.

Republican campaigns averaged $238,000 from major donors compared with $515,000 for Democrats. The small-dollar gap was more extreme—Democrats raised $23,000 on average from nearly a thousand individual donors, while Republicans raised $3,400 from fewer than fifty.

Even where Republican campaigns used professional tools or achieved higher web performance, those advantages did not fully compensate for the Democrats’ scale in digital fundraising infrastructure.

Discussion

Virginia’s 2025 results reinforce a pattern seen nationally: digital competence is a strong predictor of campaign competitiveness. The platforms, tools, and practices candidates choose (often early in the cycle) can shape their fundraising potential and voter mobilization.

Democrats entered the cycle with a more mature small-dollar ecosystem and maintained consistent digital practices across nearly every measurable dimension. Republicans demonstrated isolated strengths, particularly in website performance and select uses of WordPress and WinRed, but lagged in overall integration between web, email, and advertising operations.

At the structural level, the findings suggest that Democrats are running digitally institutionalized campaigns, while many Republicans continue to operate in a more fragmented, vendor-driven environment. The correlation between professional-grade websites and stronger electoral performance underscores that digital presence is no longer ancillary, but is a proxy for campaign capacity.

Recommendations

This analysis lends itself to a few, evidence-backed recommendations for future campaigns, parties, and allies to raise the floor and help narrow the operational gap with opponents on the Left. 

Strengthen Foundational Digital Infrastructure

Many of the disparities identified in this analysis stem from inconsistencies in basic digital setup and decisions made in the first days of a campaign. This includes prioritizing professional-grade websites, using clear and searchable full-name URLs, ensuring that every campaign collects email addresses on its homepage, and fully implementing authentication protocols such as SPF and DKIM. Strengthening this foundation improves usability, supports fundraising, and reduces friction for voters and supporters engaging with a campaign online.

Expand Digital Advertising Capacity

Democrats treated Facebook advertising as a core element of their voter outreach strategy in competitive districts. They ran more ads, tested more creative variations, and achieved significantly wider reach. Republican campaigns can improve competitiveness by adopting a similar mindset. Increasing creative volume, experimenting with multiple messages, and scaling reach in the final stretch of the campaign can improve visibility and help candidates communicate more effectively with targeted audiences.

Professionalize Campaign Technology Choices

The differences in performance between WordPress and DIY website builders, the varied success between donation platforms, and the wide range of technical standards across campaigns all point to the value of greater professionalization. Republican campaigns benefit when they use tools, platforms, and vendors that reflect established best practices. Standardizing around effective platforms, providing candidates with vetted templates, and encouraging early investment in reliable technology all help build stronger digital operations and reduce the fragmentation that currently characterizes many GOP campaigns.

Make Marketing Software More Affordable and Accessible for Campaigns

A recurring challenge for many Republican campaigns is the cost and complexity of modern marketing software. Tools for email automation, list-building, segmentation, and multi-channel coordination can be expensive or difficult for smaller operations to manage. Expanding access to simple, affordable, and automated marketing tools would help more campaigns implement the kinds of systems that support consistent donor outreach and volunteer engagement. Lowering the barriers to entry can help level the playing field and enable campaigns with limited staff to run programs that are more systematic and resilient.

Methodology

This analysis draws on campaign finance filings, website scans, digital ad archives, and email authentication data for all 168 candidates in Virginia’s 2025 House of Delegates races.

• Competitive seats: Defined as contests decided by margins of victory between -10.6% and +10%. Twenty-one races met this criterion.
  
  
• Metrics analyzed:
  
  • Website content management system (CMS)
  • Donation platform
  • Website performance (desktop and mobile)
  • Email list collection and authentication
  • Facebook ad activity
  • Fundraising totals and donor counts

Data were aggregated by candidate and averaged by party and competitiveness. The goal was to understand whether particular digital tools correlated with better fundraising or electoral performance.

‍

‍