With Roger Sollenberger, Political Reporter

Pay Dirt is a weekly foray into the pigpen of political funding. Subscribehere to get it in your inbox every Thursday.

The Big Dig this week…Why The King of Campaign Cash Is—Surprise—Joe Biden

It’s something of a political fundraising tradition—campaigns try to get ahead of the news and announce their totals before all the numbers are public, putting the best possible spin on their data before any Debbie Downers have a chance to put it in proper context.

That’s what happened last week, when the top presidential contenders each tried to write their own most flattering narrative before they released a set of highly anticipated fundraising disclosures. But now that those filings are in, the fog of spin has cleared, and we’re left with nothing but the numbers themselves.

Biden time

Those numbers show that, of the campaign committees for the top three candidates—President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, and Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis—the DeSantis operation raised the most last quarter. Add expenses to the equation, however, and Biden came out several million dollars ahead.

Federal Election Commission filings for each committee show that the DeSantis campaign led last quarter in contributions, with $20.1 million. Biden was close behind at $19.9 million, with Trump’s $17.7 million placing third.

Factor in costs, however, and those rankings change. DeSantis, who just started raising money this quarter, wrapped the period with a gain of $12 million, and that same amount in the bank. Trump, who already had a sizable stash, gained $9 million, for a total of $22.5 million in his campaign account. Biden closed out with about $20 million on hand, while posting the largest gain of the three—$19 million.

No-spin zone

But campaign announcements ahead of the disclosures offered a different spin on who was the king of the quarter.

When ABC News wrote up DeSantis’ advance announcement on July 6, the outlet noted that the numbers were only from the campaign committee itself. The reported $20 million haul “surpassed the amount that Trump’s campaign raised during its first two fundraising quarters,” the article said.

But the previous day, Politico reported that Trump’s operation had raised $35 million, which “nearly doubled what he raised in Q1.” Now we know that’s half the amount that his campaign actually brought in. But unlike the DeSantis announcement, that total didn’t only represent Trump’s campaign haul.

The $35 million instead came from a joint fundraising committee, which splits its money between two other committees—the Trump campaign and his “Save America” leadership PAC. Those types of committees play distinct roles. Most notably, the Save America money—which Trump can use for basically anything else—is off limits for his re-election bid, because candidates can’t use their leadership PAC funds to support their own campaign.

Just $15.2 million of that $35 million made its way from the joint committee to the actual campaign. Save America won’t file its own quarterly report until later this month.

The Biden team waited a week to respond, announcing its totals on July 14, the day before the filing deadline. The scope of that data, however, was even broader than Trump’s joint fundraising claims.

As The New York Times and other outlets reported, Biden revealed a combined fundraising total of more than $72 million. On the surface, that’s double Trump’s joint fundraising haul, and Biden’s campaign cast it as a “blockbuster” quarter.

The $72 million, however, came from joint fundraising efforts that included the Democratic National Committee, which means Biden’s numbers could uniquely include six-figure checks from individual megadonors. 

While the bottom line isn’t apples-to-apples to either Trump or DeSantis, it does reflect one aspect of political strength. Unlike his prospective GOP challengers, Biden’s operation is currently working in lock step with the national party, allowing him to draw early on from a broader and deeper donor base.

In the end, however, the lowest announced total—the DeSantis campaign’s $20.1 million—was actually the most that any of the campaigns raised, with Biden only about $200,000 behind. But after the filings added context, another consensus has begun to form: The real winner was Biden.

Hole in the bucket

In part, it’s because of spending. This week, numerous reports have pointed to signs of weakness in DeSantis’ numbers. That analysis draws in part from reports—published after the FEC filings were released—that the DeSantis team has fired staff as part of an effort to rein in the high burn rate.

Trump, to no great astonishment, led in spending, shelling out more than $9.1 million over the last three months. Key expenses included nearly $1.5 million for campaign events, roughly $4 million in various “consulting” fees, and more than $3.1 million for services directly associated with fundraising, such as media placement and donor lists.

But DeSantis wasn’t far behind, disbursing $7.9 million. He didn’t start with a large bankroll like Trump, so his campaign ended the period with about $8 million less in the bank than it raised, where Trump’s campaign turned in an overall gain of $9 million, ending the quarter with $22.5 million on hand. Biden, meanwhile, started with a little over $1 million on hand and posted a gain of nearly $19 million.

DeSantis’ costs include about $3 million for fundraising—neck-and-neck with Trump. Most notably, however, his campaign reported $920,000 in fees to GOP online fundraising platform WinRed, where Trump’s costs there were effectively zero. That artificially inflates Trump’s bottom line, because that indicated his joint fundraising committee picked up the tab.

Up in the air

DeSantis also notched about $1.5 million in travel-related expenses. The governor has been criticized for trying to conceal his use of private jets owned by megadonors, and his filing doesn’t offer much transparency, listing all travel costs as “travel” without further clarification, such as for lodging and airfare.

About $180,000 of DeSantis’ funds went to companies that specialize in air charters. But those costs could lurk elsewhere in the report. In June, the campaign made two hefty “travel” disbursements to a mystery company called N2024D—about $283,000 and $200,000. Florida business records show that N2024D was created two days before DeSantis officially launched his bid. It was incorporated by members of a GOP compliance firm, one of whom has served as treasurer for more than 500 political committees.

The frugal gourmet

Biden, however, has pinched every penny. His campaign reported spending just over $1.1 million, ending the quarter with more than $20 million on hand—a little north of $480,000 on fundraising and outreach, less than $70,000 for consulting, and $1,428.03 in travel and lodging.

While it’s notable that Biden quietly kept pace with two candidates who have been on unabashed publicity and fundraising blitzes, The New York Times reported that his campaign appears to be drawing much of its strength from wealthy megadonors, and is still light on small-dollar grassroots support.

Read the full story here.

Advertisement

From Roger’s Notebook...

Jacky Uh-Oh. Nevada Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen appears to have missed at least two mandated deadlines to report stock trades worth up to $30,000.

The STOCK Act of 2012 requires members to report transactions within 30 days of notification of a trade and 45 days of the transaction. Rosen’s disclosures, however, show that in February 2017, when she was a Representative, she traded up to $15,000 worth of stock in two companies—LogMeIn (Feb. 1) and Spectra Energy (Feb. 28)—but didn’t report either transaction until April 19. The LogMeIn trade belonged to Rosen’s husband, the disclosures show, which appears to have been an upshot of a corporate spinoff. The Spectra trade was also reported as an exchange, due to a corporate merger.

While those trades may be reasonably explained as events out of Rosen’s control—though still belatedly reported—the Spectra trade reveals another wrinkle.

That stock belonged to Rosen’s family trust, which her disclosures show is set up as a limited partnership in the state of Nevada. Two years later, in September 2019, Nevada revoked the partnership’s right to do business in the state after it failed to file its annual report, according to filings with the Nevada secretary of state. It took two years before the partnership was reinstated, but during that time Rosen reported up to $45,000 worth of stock transactions.

But though the company’s right to do business in the state was revoked, that doesn’t mean the transactions were illegal. Nevada statutes say that companies in default forfeit certain protections they would otherwise enjoy under the state—such as shelters from personal liability—but are not barred outright from conducting business. When the Rosen trust was reinstated in 2021, the entity had to pay a nominal penalty, but the hiatus did not otherwise disrupt business as usual.

Love Supreme. The Supreme Court asked Congress to bump its discretionary spending budget up to $127.1 million in 2024, Reuters reported in March—a $20 million jump from its 2023 request. And while the Senate Appropriations Committee—whose chair, Patty Murray (D-WA) filibustered Neil Gorsuch’s nomination and denounced several major rulings, including abortion access and affirmative action—didn’t give the justices everything they wanted, they didn’t exactly pull the plug, either.

According to the spending bill released last week, the committee wants to allocate about $120 million to the high court. The funds cover necessary operational expenses, minus costs of building and grounds maintenance, with discretionary spending set at $119,389,000.

The Supreme Court has been under fire during an unrelenting and ongoing investigative reporting assault, which has among other things revealed previously undisclosed financial ties between three conservative justices—Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito—and wealthy individuals with ideological and legal stakes in the court.

Crowbar. One of those billionaires—Harlan Crow, whose largesse to Justice Thomas has so far been the biggest focus of that reporting—recently chucked a hunk of money into the political arena. FEC filings show that Crow gave $93,800  to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s new “Protect the House” joint fundraising vehicle in June, after Crow’s name graced numerous unflattering headlines. While Crow’s gift wasn’t paltry, it doesn’t come close to the top of the PAC’s list. The committee can accept individual donations up to $703,700, and filings show that they’ve clocked a baker’s dozen of them so far.

Genius. Kanye West—now known as “Ye”—reported raising another zero dollars into his zombie 2020 presidential committee, for the seventh consecutive filing. But for some reason Ye is still shelling out for financial services, dropping a total $62,000 on accounting, treasurer, and compliance work. The Hitler-loving fashionista also gave right-wing agitator Milo Yiannopoulos another $31,200 for “campaign wrap up” work, on top of the $40,000 Ye paid Milo for the same “wrap up” service when the pair reportedly cut ties back in December. He incurred hardly any other expenses.

That $31,200 came three days after Milo finally repaid Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) the $7,000 in donor funds that he used last year to buy a Kanye 2024 web domain, which Milo then turned around and sold to Kanye for $10,000. While Yiannopoulos previously told The Daily Beast that he’d already reimbursed the Greene campaign for the supposed error, new filings show that he actually hadn’t, with the campaign only receiving that payment three days after The Daily Beast’s May 9 report.

Kanye sank more than $12 million of his own money into his bizarre White House quest, and lost all but $250,000.

U-Haul. Top GOP megadonor Dick Uihlein is placing big bets on two hard-right conservative Senate hopefuls poised to create headaches for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in key primaries. The Illinois-based shipping billionaire maxed out to Rep. Alex Mooney—who is again challenging Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia—and to Rep. Matt Rosendale, likely challenger to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in Montana. (Both lost to the same incumbents in 2018.)

But GOP brass has made clear they would prefer to run West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice against Manchin and put former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy against Tester. But the Club For Growth, a deep-pocketed conservative group, has also signaled it will back Mooney and Rosendale. And while Uihlein has already hit the limit on contributions to their campaigns, the few thousand dollars are a drop in the bucket compared to the millions he can still pour into super PACs and other outside backers.

Trouble in paradise. The Republican National Committee has reached a settlement in its lawsuit against the Republican Party of the Virgin Islands—and as a result, they shut the Caribbean outpost down for good.

The RNC cranked the heat this year, part of a long-running effort to expose the VIGOP operation as something of a scam PAC. The settlement terms stipulate the dissolution of the VIGOP PAC and compel the defendants to “not use or otherwise dilute or infringe on the RNC’s trademarks” without the national party’s consent.

In a separate filing this month, the RNC asked the court to impose sanctions against the VIGOP and two of its officials after they failed to appear for their scheduled depositions. The RNC is also seeking reimbursement for costs and legal fees, which could be quite steep—FEC filings show that the RNC has paid the firm handling the case, Consovoy McCarthy, a total of $1.1 million this year.

More From The Beast’s Politics Desk

After Sam Brodey revealed that Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) was paying big money to Tulsi Gabbard’s sister—payments that legal experts said raised “red flags”—Sinema has more than doubled down, bumping those payments to $114,000 last quarter, more than three times the previous amount and roughly one-fifth of the campaign’s total spending. Check out Brodey’s latest reporting on the saga here.

The vast majority of the money George Santos raised last quarter appears to be linked to a curious crop of brand new donors—Chinese-Americans with strong ties to indicted right-wing financier Guo Wengui. Read my scoops on it here and here.

While it’s still unclear what Trump’s seemingly imminent Jan. 6 indictment will look like, all signs point to some extremely serious charges. Avail yourself of Jose Pagliery’s preview here—before it’s too late.

We'll be back next week with more Pay Dirt.  Have a tip? Send us a note and subscribe here.