6 Key Insights from Spark's 2025 Election Technology Report

Campaigns are overlooking website performance and core web vitals. Using pagespeed.web.dev, Spark tested all campaign websites for core web vitals and performance on both desktop and mobile. Both Republican and Democrat campaign webpages performed poorly on mobile and stronger on desktop. The Republicans had a slight advantage when it came to total webpage performance.

Websites were analyzed through builtwith.com to discover which content management systems appeared most frequently and were associated with winning campaigns. Across both Democrat and Republican sites, the campaigns with WordPress sites tended to perform better in the elections. This suggests candidates who employ a third-party shop to build a campaign webpage through WordPress seem to get better results compared to campaigns that build the website in-house through SquareSpace or Wix.

Republicans have an opportunity to step up online donations. Following Election Day, a cross-section of competitive races (margin within 11 points) was conducted to analyze the performance of WinRed, Anedot, and ActBlue as well as compare the total donations to a given candidate and the percentage of donations that were given through an online donation processing platform. In the most tightly contested races, Democratic candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates processed significantly more donations through ActBlue than Republican candidates did through either WinRed or Anedot.

This discrepancy signifies the opportunity for Republican campaigns to approach online fundraising as more of a year-round effort rather than a seasonal push. Click here see Spark’s full analysis of donation processing platforms WinRed, Anedot, and ActBlue.

Democrats are outperforming with small-dollar donations (especially in Virginia). The data from the Virginia House of Delegates small-dollar donations showed that Republican candidates had an average of 49 small-dollar donations, leading to $3,343 in fundraising. This is far fewer than the average of 907 small-dollar donations, which garnered $23,201 in fundraising on the Democrat side. For Republican candidates, small-dollar donations were also compared to total donations and sorted by their choice of donation processing platform: either WinRed or Anedot. Republicans can leverage strategies that appeal to small-dollar donors and promote pulling in more small-dollar donations online.

It’s critical to have proper email infrastructure and authentication protocols in place. Spark’s insights suggest that overall the Democrats had stronger email infrastructure than the Republican campaigns. Additionally, email domains were tested through www.valimail.com/domain-checker/ for proper SPF and DMARC enforcement. This testing demonstrated that Republican and Democratic campaigns rarely have SPF and DMARC properly configured. This is an essential component of sending deliverable emails, helping to ensure that campaign messages will not be auto-sorted to spam.

Moving forward, Republican campaigns can focus on having SPF and DMARC properly configured in email campaigns to ensure messaging is accurately getting out. This starts with campaigns connecting with tech professionals who specialize in email configuration rather than solely focusing on the email content.

Democrats reached their audiences more organically on social media. Anecdotally, the Spark report suggests that it was more difficult to locate the social media accounts for Republicans than Democrats — especially in deep-blue districts. Results indicate Democrats placed a greater emphasis on organic reach through Facebook and Instagram than Republicans. Generally, the more competitive the race, the more likely the Republican candidate was to have at least some social media presence. Looking ahead to 2026, there is a huge chance to build upon Republican candidates’ social media presence and reach.

It’s important to note that the datapoints for the Virginia House of Delegates and New Jersey Assembly are slightly different due to the unique electoral process in New Jersey. Candidates often shared campaign websites and social media pages, as two Republican and two Democratic candidates appear on the ballot for two seats in the New Jersey Assembly per district.

Democrats outperformed Republicans with Facebook Ads. Facebook Ad profiles for campaigns were analyzed for total ads and impressions in mid-October. Democrats across both New Jersey and Virginia ran more ads and had greater impressions on average.

Democratic campaigns likely outreached Republicans through Facebook Ads because they also out-fundraised Republican candidates on average. It’s increasingly clear that Republican campaigns will greatly benefit from prioritizing their online advertising budgets.