Yesterday—the first day of the election campaign—gave us important information about where our strengths lie and what major challenges we will face.
Our strength is you. There is no doubt about that. In 24 hours, we realized that we can absolutely run and fund a genuine grassroots campaign built on small contributions from everyone.
Already, 14,799 people have registered to sign in support of my nomination, and more than 4,400 have said they are ready to volunteer for the campaign.
Those 14,799 people represent 4.48% of our target. We will need to submit 300,000 signatures to the election commission, and we plan to collect 330,000.
Please remember that signatures must be collected in 40 regions, so every supporter matters to us, of course, but support from outside the capital is even more important. If you are willing to sign for me (this will actually need to be done in December 2017) and you will be 18 by then (which means you are 17 now), be sure to go here and leave your email.
Money:
So far, 3.53 million rubles (about 3.53 million RUB) have been raised from more than 2,300 donors.
50% of donations came through Yandex.Money, 25% through PayPal, 10% in bitcoin (more than 100 people!), plus two large direct payments totaling 500,000 rubles: 300,000 from Pyotr Milovanov, who decided to have a little fun with the internet:
and another 200,000 from one supporter; these two transfers were the largest made in the first 24 hours.
Judging by the pace of fundraising, we seem to have set a record. Or rather, we broke our own previous records: the fundraising for RosPil (an anti-corruption project) and for the 2013 mayoral campaign. Still, we should remember that we have more than a year ahead of us. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We know how to raise a lot, and fast; now we need to learn how to raise a lot over a long period. The link https://2018.navalny.com/#donate will be appearing here quite often.
The campaign’s challenges also became clear yesterday:
Yes, the campaign announcement video was the most popular video in Russia.
Yes, all the remaining independent and semi-independent media outlets covered the event in considerable detail. It was at the top of Yandex and all that.
However, the key word here is “remaining.”
How many news segments containing the word “Navalny” do you think Channel One, VGTRK (the state broadcasting company), Russia-24, and NTV aired yesterday?
The number is 0, and it fits perfectly with Peskov’s comment yesterday:
Which means the Kremlin’s media strategy is clear: a total ban on mentioning me unless there are specific talking points from above.
From here, the fork in the road is simple too:
a) Continue the total ban on mentioning me in any context;
b) The usual routine: “According to VTsIOM and FOM (state-linked pollsters), Navalny has 1% support and a huge negative rating,” and “he stole all the timber.” We’ve been through this before.
In any case, building reliable channels of communication will remain a key task until the end of the campaign. We have various ideas about how to do that, but 90% of it still comes down to the good old formula: “hand out leaflets to your neighbors and show this video to your grandmother.”
Everyone finds that interesting for a week; it is harder to keep doing it for a month, and no one has ever done it for a year.
We’ll be the first to do it. We know that nothing comes without effort, and that water does not flow under a лежачий камень (a Russian proverb meaning nothing happens unless you take action).
A huge thank-you to everyone, and congratulations on a successful first day of the campaign. Back to work.
Join us. https://2018.navalny.com/