Donors who gave $200 to Barack Obama in 2008 but have not yet in 2012, by location. The darkness of the dot corresponds to the number of drop-off donors in that zip code. (BuzzFeed/Ky Harlin)

In 2008, more than 550,000 gave more than $200 to Barack Obama, entering their names in the longest list of individual donors ever seen in American politics.

That list was a snapshot of the hope Obama inspired in a cross sections of liberals, young professionals, African-Americans, and Democrats who saw in him a generational and historic moment. But now, as Obama struggles to keep pace with his 2008 fundraising clip, that list offers a cross-section of Democratic disappointment and alienation. According to a BuzzFeed analysis of campaign finance data, 88% of the people who gave $200 or more in 2008 — 537,806 people — have not yet given that sum this year. And this drop-off isn’t simply an artifact of timing. A full 87% of the people who gave $200 — the sum that triggers an itemized report to the Federal Elections Commission — through April of 2008, 182,078 people, had not contributed by the end of last month.

Interviews with dozens of those drop-off donors reveal the stories of Democrats who still plan to pull the lever for the president, but whose support has gone from fervent to lukewarm, or whose economic circumstances have left them without money to spare. The interviews and the data are the substance of an “enthusiasm gap” spurred by the distance between the promise of the campaign and the reality of governing, one that has begun to deepen Democratic gloom about this November’s election.

“Where’s the change I can believe in?” asked Lisa Pike, a 55-year-old from Williamsburg, Va. with a small medical transcription business who gave $658 in 2008. She said she is not planning on contributing this time around. “I wish he was the socialist they accused him of being. I wish we had the tons of change that would justify the right freaking out. I wish him well — I don’t dislike him personally — but I’m disappointed that he’s not the change-agent I had hoped for.”

An Obama campaign spokeswoman, Katie Hogan, disputed BuzzFeed’s analysis with the statistics, noting that 98% of its donors have given less than the $200 threshold this year and that the campaign is ahead of its 2008 pace. But Obama is now operating with the technical advantages of a permanent campaign, including history’s largest email list, and the political advantages of incumbency, which traditionally draws business interests and favor-seekers to the candidate. Aides have long anticipated that muscle and technical prowess, combined with fear of a Republican takeover, will replace inspiration in keeping the campaign fundraising on track.

Former donors’ complaints vary — healthcare, the economy, and Congressional deadlock rank high — but many of Obama’s once die-hard supporters share a disappointment born of high expectations. Indeed, Obama’s core supporters in the 2008 Democratic primary were liberals suspicious of Hillary Clinton’s association with a moderate “New Democrat” past and her support for the Iraq war. They backed the Illinois Democrat despite his own relatively centrist platform, but were disappointed when he stuck to it. Several cited Obama’s failure to include a single payer option in his health care bill, as well as general willingness to bend to Republican wishes as being central to their disappointment with the President.

“Mostly, the thing is we want more,” said Kirsten Leitzinger of Rebersburg, Pa. She and her husband, Robert, a race car driver, contributed $1,250 in 2008 and still plan on voting for Obama this time around, but had also expected a more expansive health care bill. They have not yet decided whether they will contribute to his campaign this year; his presidency has left them with expectations and dreams unfulfilled.

“We were a little upset about healthcare. I really, really wanted that public option,” Mrs. Leitzinger said.

“I’m looking around here for leadership, and it didn’t happen,” said Elizabeth Hollins. She and her husband Danforth have retired to Williamsburg, Va., and together contributed $2,450 to Obama in 2008. Hollins used to consider herself to be a diehard Obama supporter, but this year, she said, she is not as convicted in her backing.

“I was excited about him. I walked door to door,” she recalled of 2008. “But I haven’t been thrilled. Am I going to vote for Romney? No. But I want to be excited about my president.”

“We are waiting to see more of the leadership we had hoped for before we fork over all of our money,” Hollins said.

Obama’s campaign elided the inevitability of Capitol Hill compromise. In 2008, that provoked intense frustration from the practical-minded Clinton, who at one point parodied Obama’s appeal as “Let's just get everybody together. Let's get unified. The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.'"

“None of the problems we face will be easily solved,” she warned in Providence, R.I., that February.

Her warning didn’t derail Obama’s campaign, but her objections appear to ring truer now than they did then to Democrats, and health care isn’t the only issue on which it’s played.

Compromise on another issue has alienated John Meidlinger, 61, who is a clinical psychologist from Grand Island, Neb. He gave $250 in September of ’08. From his perspective, “The biggest deficiency is that he hasn’t done more to regulate the banks. He should be more of a populist,” Meidlinger said.

Yet another hope that Obama never explicitly made became a sticking point for Sandra McCauley, a retired family counselor from Jeffersonville, Ind. who gave $400 in 2008.

“I’d like to see us out of Afghanistan,” she said.

“I didn’t feel good that what I expected wasn’t done,” said Prashant Kothari, 65, an anesthesiologist from Tiffin, Ohio who gave $500 in 2008. “The promises during the campaign didn’t materialize.”

“I still think the world of President Obama and I was just so happy when he was elected,” said Sandra Elkin of Chillicothe, Ohio. Elkin, 70, is retired but spends her time doing accounting work for her husband’s real estate firm, and gave $250 in 2008. “I’ve just been a little disappointed in things, that’s all. That’s why I haven’t contributed.”