Gmail's spam filter just got a carve-out for politicians.
Google's Verified Sender Program authenticates political committees and waves their messages past Gmail's usual spam screening. Recipients aren't locked out of protecting their inbox: they can still mark any message from a verified sender as spam. But the program comes with a leash. If more than 0.3% of a committee's messages get marked as spam, Google pulls it from the program and the mail goes back to being filtered like everyone else's.
That 0.3% threshold is the real story here. It turns Gmail's spam button into a de facto referendum on a campaign's email hygiene: blast too aggressively, and the electorate's inbox behavior, not a policy team, decides you're out. It also means political committees now have an incentive Gmail's filter never gave regular senders: a hard, visible number to stay under.
Fundraising emails already have a reputation for testing inboxes' patience. This program just puts a scoreboard on it.