The 14 Senate Democrats who fled to Illinois have not only temporarily blocked their Republican colleagues from pushing through Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill.

They've also hit the campaign jackpot.

About 12,000 donors have given more than $300,000 in recent days to the State Senate Democratic Committee via ActBlue.com, a national website that funnels money from various sources for Democratic causes. On Monday afternoon, ActBlue was passing along more than 200 donations an hour to Wisconsin's Senate Democrats.

By contrast, their campaign fund raised only about $320,000 last year.

No wonder the Democratic senators are talking of continuing their Illinois exile.

The farther they are from Wisconsin, the more successful their fundraising efforts.

Kory Kozloski, executive director of the Senate Democratic campaign fund, said he expects the dollars to keep flowing.

"After you see the tens of thousands of people who have come out the Capitol this week to show their support for workers' rights, I don't think that it's a surprise that there are so many people out there who feel passionate about this issue and the stand the senators are making," Kozloski said in a Monday interview.

But the Wisconsin Dems aren't the only ones hoping to cash in on the political crisis.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin gives visitors to its website the chance to "stand with Walker now" by giving money to its campaign fund.

Likewise, Reince Priebus, the newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent out an alert recently calling on supporters to write checks to the national GOP fund in support of Walker.

"It appears the Democrats would rather throw a temper tantrum and sabotage the democratic process than do the responsible thing, heed the will of the people, and end the redistribution of taxpayers' wealth to their leftist political allies," wrote Priebus, a state resident who formerly headed the state Republican Party. "Today the fight is in Wisconsin, but soon it will be nationwide."

It's a theme picked up by the Virginia-based Republican State Leadership Committee, which spent heavily on attack ads against Wisconsin Democrats last year.

"This fight isn't just happening in Wisconsin," wrote Scott Ward, president of the group, in a Friday memo. "Ohio, Tennessee, and Indiana are seeing similar battles brewing between legislators doing the tough work of budget cuts and teacher's unions wanting to save themselves from the reality of a lean state budget."

Walker's plan would require most public workers to pay half their pension costs - typically 5.8% of pay for state workers - and at least 12% of their health care costs.

The first-term Republican governor also wants to limit raises to the rate of inflation unless a bigger increase was approved in a referendum. Public employee unions would lose their rights to bargain over anything but wages, would have to hold annual elections to keep their organizations intact and would lose the ability to have union dues deducted from state paychecks.

Police and firefighter unions would be exempt from the proposed changes.

Last week, all 14 Senate Democrats bolted to Illinois to keep their Republican colleagues from having the required number of senators to vote on a spending bill.

Over the past week, teachers, nurses, firefighters and students have packed the Capitol grounds to protest Walker's austerity measures. His supporters held a counterdemonstration in Madison over the weekend.

The Senate Democratic committee began soliciting donations shortly after its members went on the lam. Several lefty national blogs, including the Daily Kos and Atrios, joined in the cause by helping to raise money for the MIA senators.

ActBlue, a political action committee, is acting as a conduit for donations from those blogs and other groups, including U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat supporting the Wisconsin lawmakers. The fundraising effort for the Wisconsin Democratic senators is listed as the hottest issue on ActBlue's running tally of donations to various left-wing causes.

A spokesman for ActBlue said Monday that people around the country responded immediately when the fundraising effort began earlier this month.

"A little while after the story broke and people started raising (money), they were at $20,000," said Adrian Arroyo, the group's director of communications.

But Kozloski said the bulk of the money is flowing from Wisconsin residents, with the average check running slightly more than $25. His committee has been asking for donations of $14, one dollar for each of the AWOL Democratic senators.

So - and here is the question that many will want answered - will the money raised via ActBlue and other sources be used to pay for their road trip?

"I don't know right now," Kozloski said. "They've been paying out of their own pockets."

At least that's the case for now.

Daniel Bice can be contacted by phone at (414) 224-2135 or by e-mail at dbice@journalsentinel.com.