Tulsi Gabbard Released a Map Boasting About Her Supporters. It Makes No Sense.

The Hawaii Democrat’s 2020 presidential campaign launch presents a new crowd-size controversy.

It looks like two can play the crowd size-exaggerating game.

Tulsi Gabbard formally launched her campaign for president on Saturday and, according to an Instagram post from her campaign, more than 3,500 people tuned in at watch parties around the country, including in deep-red pockets of Texas and North Dakota. 

But for a map purportedly showing the locations of Gabbard supporters, some groups of pins look awfully suspicious, as if particular images of clusters were roughly copy-and-pasted in locations across the map.

The Gabbard campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the map’s production, or to a request to provide a list of where watch parties occurred.

Instagram/Mother Jones

The Hawaii congresswoman has had a rocky start to her candidacy since informally launching her long-shot bid last month. Her campaign manager quit last month. After today, the campaign may need a new graphic designer too. 

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

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