The GOP online donation platform endorsed by President Donald Trump is starting up to state legislative candidates and others outside the federal office, aspiring to drive a significant financial boost for Republicans in the states ahead of the 2020 elections and next year’s redistricting.

WinRed, which launched last year, is partnering with the Republican State Leadership Committee to make the platform available to state-level GOP candidates – another step in the group’s drive to get the entire Republican Party using one mode for digital fundraising. The platform offers features including one-click donating, the ability to set recurring donations, and optimized fundraising pages.

While the presidential race will demand the most attention in 2020, this election is also expressly consequential because state legislatures will play an important role in the decennial redistricting process that begins next year, with the potential in some states to enact maps that favor one party for the next decade.

“Starting now, any local mayor, statehouse candidate, statewide race, or anyone running for dogcatcher has access to the same platform and tools the president of the United States does,” said Gerrit Lansing, WinRed’s president.

Democratic online donors swamped Republican candidates around the country in the 2018 midterm elections, demonstrating the decisive role digital fundraising can play in elections. ActBlue, the platform founded in 2004 and favored by Democrats for years, is used by most Democratic candidates for Congress and the presidency, and it processed more than half a billion dollars in contributions for the first three months of 2020 alone.

Online donors gave Republicans $130 million via WinRed in the first quarter of 2020, according to the group’s latest campaign finance disclosure. President Donald Trump was the biggest beneficiary, but 6 Republican senators up for reelection this fall raised at least $1 million through WinRed from January through March, as did the House and Senate GOP campaign arms.

Now, the WinRed platform will expand beyond the federal level, navigating different state campaign finance laws across the country.

“This could not come at a more important time,” said Austin Chambers, the RSLC president. “We’re going into a redistricting cycle. … Control of state legislatures matters more than ever. It’s not just policy in the states, but what the congressional maps look like.”

Chambers said last year’s state legislative elections in Virginia, which saw both houses flip to Democratic control for the past two years of Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s term, illustrate why he believes it’s critical to get WinRed involved up and down the ballot.

“Republicans were outspent in Virginia by $15.2 million [in last year’s state legislative races]. ActBlue raised $17.2 million for candidates in Virginia,” Chambers said. “So the single explanation for why Republicans were outspent was ActBlue.”