How elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns

(CNN) — The 80-year-old communications engineer from Texas had saved for decades, driving around in an old car and buying clothes from thrift stores so he’d have enough money to enjoy his retirement years.

But as dementia robbed him of his reasoning abilities, he began making online political donations over and over again — eventually telling his son he believed he was part of a network of political operatives communicating with key Republican leaders. In less than two years, the man became one of the country’s largest grassroots supporters of the Republican Party, ultimately giving away nearly half a million dollars to former President Donald Trump and other candidates. Now, the savings account he spent his whole life building is practically empty.

The story of this unlikely political benefactor is one of many playing out across the country.

More than 1,000 reports filed with government agencies and consumer advocacy groups reviewed by CNN, along with an analysis of campaign finance data and interviews with dozens of contributors and their family members, show how deceptive political fundraisers have victimized hundreds of elderly Americans and misled those battling dementia or other cognitive impairments into giving away millions of dollars — far more than they ever intended. Some unintentionally joined the ranks of the top grassroots political donors in the country as they tapped into retirement savings and went into debt, contributing six-figure sums through thousands of transactions.

To provide a snapshot of who these vulnerable donors are and how much money they have lost to increasingly aggressive fundraising campaigns, reporters reached out to more than 300 of the biggest and most frequent small-dollar political donors and their family members. Through these interviews and consumer complaints, reporters collected the accounts of more than 50 unwitting elderly donors and traced the path of where their money went.

Often coming in $5 or $10 at a time, contributions from this small sampling of donors alone added up to more than $6 million over the last five years — the majority of which ended up with Trump and a long list of other Republican candidates, CNN found.

While this is a small fraction of the billions raised by political campaigns, for many of the individuals who made the donations, the sums represented huge portions of their life savings.

Deceptive fundraising tactics, including those that trick elderly donors, were exposed in the wake of the 2020 election. While studies show that older Americans tend to lean more Republican, both parties have continued to rake in donations from elderly voters. And mainstream Republican candidates have only doubled down on this strategy, using more aggressive and predatory tactics than those used by Democrats, according to donor complaints, interviews with experts and a review of solicitations. The Republican fundraising machine has been subject to more than 800 complaints to the Federal Trade Commission since 2022 — nearly seven times more than the number of complaints lodged against the other side.

“The fact there are lots of complaints means this is likely a huge problem,” said Prentiss Cox, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former manager of consumer protection at the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, when presented with CNN’s reporting. “From a consumer protection standpoint, this raises red flag level concerns about consumer misinformation and deception.”

Donors identified by CNN were often in their 80s and 90s. They included retired public workers, house cleaners and veterans, widows living alone, nursing home residents and people who donated more money than they paid for their homes, according to records and interviews.

The money they gave came from pensions, Social Security payments and retirement savings accounts meant to last decades. Donors took out new credit cards and mortgages to pay for the contributions. In some cases, they gave away most of their life savings. Their cell phones and email inboxes were so full of pleas for money that they missed photos of their grandkids and other important messages.

At least one person continued to be charged for contributions after his death.

Donors or their families often learned of the extent of their donations from CNN reporters. The family members of some said their loved ones had also been the targets of common elder scams. Most asked CNN not to name them out of concern that they would be further victimized or ashamed.

One 82-year-old woman, who wore pajamas with holes in them because she didn’t want to spend money on new ones, didn’t realize she had given Republicans more than $350,000 while living in a 1,000 square-foot Baltimore condo since 2020.

By the time a Taiwanese immigrant from California passed away from lung cancer this year at age 80, she had given away more than $180,000 to Trump’s campaign and a litany of other Republican candidates – writing letters to candidates apologizing for not getting donations to them on time because she was going into heart surgery. She had only $250 in her bank account when she died, leaving her family scrambling to cover the cost of her funeral.

And a 78-year-old, a widow who limited showers to save on her water bill and canceled her long-term care insurance, didn’t understand why the retirement savings her husband had left her was dwindling so quickly. After CNN reached out to her family, they learned that the woman gave more than $200,000 in donations to Democratic political groups and candidates.

The federal government has gone after non-political companies for similar tactics, such as making false statements in ads or making them seem as if they were written directly to the recipient. But regulators have done little to stop fundraisers from using misleading and deceptive advertisements to target vulnerable donors. And the lawmakers who experts say would need to act to protect consumers at both the state and federal levels are the same ones benefiting from the current fundraising machines.

The biggest beneficiary of the small-dollar donations from unwitting donors identified by CNN was Donald Trump. His current and former campaigns and affiliated political committees brought in more than $400,000 from these elderly consumers between July 2019 and June 2024, which included multiple election cycles. The national committees which raise money to support House and Senate races across the nation also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from such donors, according to CNN’s analysis, and in all, the long list of Republican candidates and causes took in nearly $4 million.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee noted that fundraising efforts over the years have varied and said Trump ads were designed to be respectful, including such language as “don’t sweat it” if donors couldn’t afford to contribute on a regular basis.

On the Democratic side, much of the money went to left-leaning political action committees known as PACs, not mainstream Democratic candidates. The Progressive Turnout Project and its affiliated group, Stop Republicans, took in the most, with roughly $150,000 coming from the vulnerable donors identified by CNN. President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign was not among the top recipients, taking in only about 10% of the $400,000 Trump brought in from those elderly donors.

Vice President Kamala Harris had not yet launched her presidential bid during the fundraising period covered in CNN’s analysis, though more recent campaign finance reports show her campaign has taken in several thousand dollars from this snapshot of donors. The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Donald Trump and other Republicans took in millions from this small sampling of vulnerable seniors

Over $6 million in contributions from just 52 elderly, unwitting donors identified by CNN were spread out among nearly 2,000 campaigns and political action committees (PACs). Most of the money went to Republican candidates, and Trump’s political operation was the top recipient.

Total contributions to campaigns and political action committees from vulnerable donors identified by CNN

ActBlue

WinRed

0

$50,000

Democratic

Senatorial

Campaign

Committee

$90,044

100,000

Democratic

Congressional

Campaign

Committee

$123,472

150,000

Progressive

Turnout Project/

Stop Republicans

$155,837

National

Republican

Congressional

Committee

$165,479

200,000

250,000

300,000

National Republican

Senatorial Committee

$373,586

350,000

400,000

Trump campaigns and

associated committees

$440,033

450,000

ActBlue

WinRed

0

$50,000

Democratic

Senatorial

Campaign

Committee

$90,044

100,000

Democratic

Congressional

Campaign

Committee

$123,472

150,000

Progressive

Turnout Project/

Stop Republicans

$155,837

National

Republican

Congressional

Committee

$165,479

200,000

250,000

300,000

National Republican

Senatorial Committee

$373,586

350,000

Trump campaigns and

associated committees

$440,033

400,000

450,000

WinRed

Trump campaigns and

associated committees

$440,033

National Republican

Congressional Committee

$165,479

National Republican

Senatorial Committee

$373,586

ActBlue

Democratic Senatorial

Campaign Committee

$90,044

Progressive Turnout Project/

Stop Republicans

$155,837

Democratic Congressional

Campaign Committee

$123,472

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

350,000

400,000

$450,000

Trump campaigns and

associated committees

$440,033

National Republican

Congressional Committee

$165,479

WinRed

National Republican

Senatorial Committee

$373,586

ActBlue

Democratic Congressional

Campaign Committee

$123,472

Progressive Turnout Project/

Stop Republicans

$155,837

Democratic Senatorial

Campaign Committee

$90,044

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

350,000

400,000

$450,000

Trump campaigns and

associated committees

$440,033

WinRed

National Republican

Congressional Committee

$165,479

National Republican

Senatorial Committee

$373,586

ActBlue

Democratic Congressional

Campaign Committee

$123,472

Progressive Turnout Project/

Stop Republicans

$155,837

Democratic Senatorial

Campaign Committee

$90,044

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

350,000

400,000

$450,000

The fundraising operations that have solicited money from vulnerable senior citizens use either WinRed or ActBlue, two juggernaut digital platforms that unite hundreds of political groups and campaigns under a single umbrella. Each platform charges a fee of about 4% of every transaction, although WinRed is a for-profit company and ActBlue is a nonprofit. Campaign finance records show that the two groups took in more than $100 million in fees from federal campaigns and political committees in the last two years alone.

WinRed, founded by a former Trump staffer in 2019, and ActBlue, which has been around for two decades, say it is the campaigns themselves that are choosing the frequency and tenor of the pleas for donations. WinRed did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for ActBlue said the platform is designed to give “donors full control” over their contributions, saying donors or their families can contact their in-house support team with any concerns.

But it is the fundraising platforms that have made it easier than ever for campaigns to bring in as much money as possible from their bases. Both have boasted of record-breaking hauls this campaign cycle, with WinRed saying this summer it was processing more than 2,700 donations per minute — a jump of more than 40% from 2020.

The controversial feature that fools many donors is a pre-checked box campaigns use to automatically authorize recurring donations. Donors often don’t realize they need to uncheck that box, so while attempting to make a one-time small donation, they are unknowingly signing up for weekly or monthly recurring donations. Sometimes it takes months or years before they realize a campaign has been regularly charging their credit card or taking money out of their bank account.

While many mainstream Democratic candidates have backed away from the practice, both the Trump and Harris campaigns have recently been using donation pages with pre-checked recurring boxes to raise money, a CNN analysis of fundraising emails and Facebook and Instagram ads found.

Trump’s campaign said two of his current fundraising committees only returned to the use of pre-checked boxes in September after pausing the practice in January 2023. The spokesperson, however, did not address whether another Trump-affiliated committee still receiving donations this year had been using the tactic. Trump Campaign Senior Advisor Brian Hughes said "we strive to be direct and transparent by informing them immediately when they have registered for recurring donations, sending a notice three days before processing, notifying them when the processing is complete, and having staff on-hand to assist with refunds and cancellations.”

Recurring donations only multiply as confirmed donors become valuable political currency — their names and contact information quickly swapped and sold. And once WinRed or ActBlue has a donor’s financial information, donations can be triggered by actions including a response to an online survey, an order of campaign merchandise or a one-word reply to a text message.

As a result, records show, some donors ended up being charged in excess of 100 times in a single day.

‘Lonely and isolated’

Richard Benjamin, an 81-year-old from Arizona, believed he had been in personal communication with former president Trump through all the messages he was receiving.

At one point, he told his children the former president invited him to a luxurious reception at Mar-a-Lago. He had grown up on a farm and worried he would feel out of his element at such a fancy venue. But when he received what he described to his children as an invitation to be a VIP at a rally in Arizona, he was thrilled he would finally meet the former president himself. He started making travel plans and asking his sister-in-law if she would like to accompany him, since his wife had passed away in 2018.

Later, he told his son how angry he was that Donald Trump Jr. wouldn't call him back even though the former president’s son had sent Benjamin so many nice messages.

“He was old, lonely and isolated,” his son, Jason Benjamin, told CNN, saying the pandemic only compounded that isolation. “’Save America, help save America,’ that was the constant message. He would get thanked for helping to save America.”

Richard Benjamin, who now lives in a memory care unit at an assisted living facility, would look forward to the emails and texts, and especially to the ones thanking him for being a true American and patriot when he donated his money. This eventually led him to give about $80,000, leaving him tens of thousands of dollars in debt and his children angry at the campaigns who they say tricked their dad and took advantage of his compromised state of mind. “He really, in his heart, believed that Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. and other politicians were personally reaching out to him,” Jason Benjamin said.

Richard Benjamin and his family showed CNN that he continues to be inundated with text messages and phone calls from politicians to this day. Yet he often couldn’t identify the politicians he financially supported.

“There’s no excuse for them to allow something like this to happen,” Jason Benjamin said of the campaigns behind the many solicitations. An employee from Richard Benjamin’s bank even lodged a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission about deceptive practices, saying Benjamin had never intended to donate close to the amount he did, according to FTC records.

Forensic geriatrician Kathryn Locatell said what Richard Benjamin felt each time he received a “thank you” message or made a donation is the same “dopamine hit” a lot of elderly Americans are seeking. And the solicitations are crafted in a way that intentionally suck elderly donors into their web, providing “a feeling of belonging to a thrilling, special club.”

“You and I could call these demands for money laughable but to a person who’s lost their capacity to judge reality, and who’s been soaking up all the toxic misinformation out there, on the internet and TV, it’s a perfectly coherent reality and they’re happy to join in and become a part of it,” she said. “That’s how all their money will be drained until it’s gone.”

Because the text informing donors they are enrolling in recurring donations is often so tiny, particularly on WinRed donation pages, it would be very easy for someone who isn’t actually processing what they’re reading to miss it, according to Locatell and other experts interviewed by CNN. Elderly donors who have short-term memory issues could be making one-time donations again and again, not remembering that they made a donation even an hour earlier, they added.

“These ads are a form of misleading, undue influence,” Locatell said. “One simple rule could be enacted: Ads can’t contain these pre-checked boxes; the person has to actively choose recurring donation.”

Behavioral symptoms such as getting hooked by solicitations like these and making poor financial decisions often happen in the early stages of dementia, before family members even realize their loved ones are experiencing any sort of cognitive decline.

Calls from CNN reporters asking about donations prompted some family members to rush over to their loved ones’ homes to help look through statements or to begin the long process of taking over their finances. Other families CNN spoke with said it was the unusually large number of political donations – which took precedence over expenses as important as electricity bills and taxes -- that alerted them something was wrong.

In the case of the 80-year-old retired communications engineer who gave away close to half a million dollars, one of the man’s sons discovered his savings account was nearly drained from all his donations. The son said he took him to a neurologist where he was diagnosed with dementia and spent weeks canceling credit cards and disputing charges, attempting to turn off recurring donations one by one. He ultimately received refunds from WinRed for his father’s most recent donations. Still, his father remains out roughly $300,000.

“When I found this out and started showing Dad, he was shocked, he had no idea,” his son said. “He's not a man to give anyone what he considered his life savings.”

It often falls on families to try to help their loved ones.

The daughter of an 81-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease told CNN that when she visited her mother at her home last month, her mom got a call from Ted Cruz’s campaign and a text with an ActBlue link within minutes of each other. She said her mother was going to donate to each before she stopped her. Her mother’s cognitive decline has gotten so bad, she said, that she believed when someone asked her for money, she needed to give it. The daughter, who lives in another city, said she has been trying to coordinate her mother’s medical care while also sorting through the credit card debt she accrued after giving away more than $100,000.

No oversight

When an elderly man discovered thousands of dollars' worth of political charges on his credit card he said he never authorized, he turned to the agency that oversees campaign donations – the Federal Election Commission – for help.

“I am an 89-year-old widower, a retired architect who lives alone,” he wrote in a 2022 complaint. He said he had been plagued by robocalls and scam mail and it appeared ActBlue was “rife with fraud.” By the time the FEC completed its investigation, he had died, collapsing "on his way to the post office to mail postcards to voters in Texas,” according to his obituary. But the agency hadn’t planned on doing anything about his complaint anyway, writing in a response that the matter was “rated as low priority” for an enforcement action based on criteria including the severity of the allegation and the dollar amount involved.

The agency shut down another complaint made about WinRed by the daughters of an elderly woman who said their mother had lost more than $6,700 to “elder abuse” with the same boiler plate response, noting the “low dollar amount involved.”

The FEC would not comment on WinRed or ActBlue specifically but said in a 2023 report on legislative recommendations that it had been regularly hearing from donors who had signed up for recurring donations without their knowledge or consent. The report noted consumers had often attempted to cancel the donations without success before contacting agency staff for help. Agency officials said the outcry from donors "strongly suggests that many contributors are unaware of the ‘pre-checked boxes’ and are surprised by the already completed transactions appearing on account statements." But it said it didn’t have the authority to ban the practice, and that Congress should introduce legislation to change this — a recommendation agency officials first made after the New York Times reported on the issue in 2021.

Dan Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s Elections & Government Program, said federal campaign finance law is primarily intended to police political corruption but offers few protections for donors. He said seeking recurring donations “from someone who is not of sound mind” is “unscrupulous behavior [that] falls into a legal gray area.”

The Federal Trade Commission criticized pre-checked boxes in a 2022 staff report as an example of a “trick” and “psychological tactic” used by retailers and direct marketers “to get consumers to part with their money.” But the agency — which enforces laws governing deceptive advertising, among other regulations — told CNN it did not have jurisdiction over ads used by political campaigns, or over the operations of WinRed and ActBlue, despite fielding hundreds of complaints from consumers.

Currently, pre-checked boxes for recurring donations are allowed in almost every state despite widespread condemnation of the practice from consumer advocates. Federal legislation introduced in recent years that would have prevented their use died in committee without gaining traction.

And while four Democratic attorneys general have been investigating the fundraising tactics of WinRed and ActBlue, no action has been taken to date. A number of Republican lawmakers have specifically targeted ActBlue with investigations after right-wing influencers claimed the large volume of transactions from some donors suggested money laundering. CNN has found no evidence of money laundering, instead finding that many elderly donors simply didn’t realize how much they were giving.

Individual complaints made to state attorneys general around the country, meanwhile, have not resulted in any apparent action taken against the fundraising platforms or campaigns, according to records obtained by CNN. And in what some donors and experts have pointed to as a potential conflict of interest, the same attorneys general receiving complaints about these platforms have also used WinRed and ActBlue for their own fundraising efforts.

Making it stop

In Utah, a 69-year-old woman, who had a tube surgically placed in her brain to drain fluid from it and had such severe dementia that she required around-the-clock home care, donated nearly $20,000 to Republican candidates in less than four months.

WinRed continued to charge her even after the attorney overseeing her financial affairs informed the company of her condition and sent a cease-and-desist letter. He filed a lawsuit in 2021 against the platform, which remains ongoing. But it still took a year to make the donations stop. Just seven days after she made her last donation to the Republicans, public records show that more donations were charged to her accounts. This time, to a political group supporting Democrats.

A snapshot of unwitting elderly donors identified by CNN

These 52 elderly donors, many suffering from dementia, gave more than $6 million to political campaigns — far more than they ever intended.

Total contribution by individual donor

This Taiwanese immigrant had never been involved in American politics until she became lonely and isolated during the pandemic

The 80-year-old engineer gave away nearly half a million dollars

$181K

$279.2k

$231.7k

$280.9k

$210.4k

$207.2k

$449.9k

$359.1k

$224.9k

$290.2k

$227.1k

$6K

$250.1k

$146K

This 89-year-old stroke victim suffers from short-term memory loss and does not remember making donations

This 88-year-old dementia patient’s son filed a complaint about WinRed to the Florida attorney general

This Taiwanese immigrant had never been involved in American politics until she became lonely and isolated during the pandemic

The 80-year-old engineer gave away nearly half a million dollars

$181K

$279.2k

$231.7k

$280.9k

$210.4k

$207.2k

$449.9k

$359.1k

$224.9k

$290.2k

$227.1k

$6K

$250.1k

$146K

This 88-year-old dementia patient’s son filed a complaint about WinRed to the Florida attorney general

This 89-year-old stroke victim suffers from short-term memory loss and does not remember making donations

This Taiwanese immigrant had never been involved in American politics until she became lonely and isolated during the pandemic

This 80-year-old engineer gave away nearly half a million dollars

$181K

$279k

$232k

$281k

$210k

$207k

$450k

$359k

$225k

$227k

$290k

$6K

$250.1k

$146K

This 89-year-old stroke victim suffers from short-term memory loss and does not remember making donations

This 88-year-old

dementia patient’s son

filed a complaint about

WinRed to the Florida

attorney general

Matthew Hurtt, the chairman of Virginia-based Arlington County Republican Committee, said he has fielded more than 200 calls and emails from frustrated donors located all over the country. Many of them are elderly donors who say they have struggled to stop their recurring contributions and receive refunds. Hurtt is not affiliated with WinRed, but said he receives the angry inquiries because WinRed is registered in Arlington, so charges made through the platform can sometimes show up with “Arlington” on credit card statements.

Hurtt, like other experts, told CNN he believes such aggressive fundraising tactics are short-sighted and will turn off voters in the long run.

“We don't have to trick people into giving money to our candidates and to our causes,” Hurtt said. “Any platform that tricks older donors into giving money unwittingly seems like a scheme to me.”

Both WinRed and ActBlue have said they notify donors of each recurring contribution and have guides on their websites explaining how donors or their families can request refunds and cancel recurring donations.

ActBlue told CNN it has trained its customer service staff to be on the lookout for those donors who use keywords that indicate confusion or cognitive issues and escalate them to a higher level of service. The platform said this situation is rare and that employees do what they can to accommodate refunds beyond the standard 90-day refund window.

WinRed’s website meanwhile says it “is happy to refund any donation made in error,” but notes that it can only provide refunds for those contributions made in the last 60 days.

Some of the candidates and PACs who CNN identified as receiving the most money from elderly, unwitting donors said they try to work with contributors to refund mistaken donations.

But many of those interviewed by CNN said it was hard to determine which campaigns to contact, especially since donations were often spread out among hundreds of groups. They usually contacted WinRed or ActBlue instead and found the process confusing, difficult and frequently unsuccessful.

In the case of WinRed specifically, many said they couldn’t even figure out how to reach a representative on the phone. One frustrated son who filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office told CNN he resorted to tracking down a company intern he found on LinkedIn in the hopes of finally turning off his mother’s recurring donations. He said she had lost more than $20,000 and that after contacting WinRed and even cancelling her debit card, she continued to be charged.

In Washington state, meanwhile, WinRed was quick to dismiss an 80-year-old woman’s plea for the state to investigate the platform for “senior abuse” -- saying the woman had agreed to the company’s terms of use, which make clear it provides refunds only as required by law. By the time she had filed her complaint, her money was long gone. It was up to her to reach out to the campaigns for any refunds.

“With all due respect,” WinRed’s attorney wrote, “there is nothing here to investigate.”