Digital innovation in electoral campaigns: the case of microcredit in Podemos

Crowdfunding and micro-donations for funding political campaigns have been extensively studied, especially in the US. However, digital participatory financing in Europe, with a different regulatory context and relevant public funding, has been investigated less. This article analyses the effects of an innovative and digital-native electoral campaign financing tool: the microcredit. Microcredits consist of small “civil loans” that a political party requests from sympathizers to finance the party's electoral campaign. Based on the case study of the Spanish party Podemos – the first one to implement it – for the period of 2015–2021, we use official data and party documents to explore the consequences of microcredit. We argue, first, that microcredits (and party financing) should be considered another way to differentiate challenger parties from traditional ones. Second, there is a link between the number and amount of microcredits and the political context, not limited to good electoral expectations but also to the polarized political context. Third, microcredits change the structure of campaign funding. Finally, we point out a regulation problem that may deter other parties from adopting this mechanism and present different legal problems (monitoring, data protection, or potential corruption), showing the regulatory issues for adapting to the digitalization of politics.