Kyle Keyser’s social media skills pay off in mayoral fundraising
September 8, 2009 at 2:35 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsLast Wednesday, anti-crime advocate Kyle Keyser made the Atlanta mayoral race — which has seen its fair share of drama the last few weeks — much more interesting when he announced his candidacy.
One problem: Keyser didn’t have the $4,425 to get his name on the ballot. Another problem: the Little Five Points resident had only 48 hours to raise the cash. Either that or gather 2,300 signatures in the same amount of time.
So Keyser, the co-founder of the 10,000-member strong Atlantans Together Against Crime and who’s well-known among the city’s more social, younger crowd, asked for help from friends and strangers via Twitter, Facebook and DailyKos. It paid off. Here are the numbers.
From the Keyser campaign:
Total raised: $4,760
233 donations
Average: $20.43
Sampling of donations and totals:
$5 donations: 20
$10 donations: 61
$20 donations: 49
$50 donations: 20
$100 donations: 4
Highest single donation: $120
Pretty impressive right out of the gate.
The odds are obviously against Keyser. Political veterans will probably discount him because of his lack of experience and late arrival to the fundraising race. He’s also young and gay. Those attributes, unfortunately, could work against his favor when it comes to politically active — and right-leaning — north Atlanta voters.
But don’t underestimate his strengths. As veteran political writer Tom Baxter of Insider Advantage notes of Keyser:
…the combination of representing a significant minority in city elections, having internet savvy and talking about an issue on a lot of voters’ minds is one the candidates who’ve been running longer can’t ignore. This is shaping up to be a very interesting fall campaign.
Amen to that, Tom.
September 8th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
This helps Lisa a bit. Keyser is relatively well known and hopefully will drive people to the election who would not have voted otherwise. Perhaps he can rally those people into the runoff with an endorsement. However, if he lived in Grant Park or thereabouts (he may not, I am unsure) he would have had a much better shot against Carla Smith, who badly needs an opponent.
Anti-spam word was “loaf”.