Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
Hundreds of college students “were paid $20 a pop for every family member, friend or acquaintance they could persuade to donate $1 to Hutchinson this summer,” Politico reports.
“The texting-for-pay plan was one of several efforts by Republican contenders to beef up their number of unique donors by paying for them.”
Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sam Brown (R) “created a political action committee to ‘help elect Republicans’ but most of its funds were spent paying down debt from his failed previous campaign,” CNN reports.
“The group donated less than 7% of its funds to the candidates it was set up to support, according to campaign finance records – a move one campaign finance expert likened to using the PAC as a ‘slush fund.'”
“When WinRed, the company that processes nearly all online Republican campaign contributions, recently released its enormous trove of donor data for the first half of the year, donations were conspicuously absent for one presidential candidate: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida,” the New York Times reports.
“It was no technical glitch. The DeSantis campaign worked with WinRed in a way that prevented the disclosure of donor information, ensuring that the campaign’s small donors would remain anonymous.”
“The arrangement appears to be the first of its kind for a presidential campaign since WinRed’s founding four years ago and could presage a return to an era in which far less information on small donors is made public, at least for Republicans.”
“Special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of efforts by Donald Trump and others to subvert the 2020 election remains ongoing — with at least one interview this week that focused on fundraising and spending by Trump’s political action committee,” Politico reports.
“The special counsel has long been thought to be scrutinizing whether Trump or his PAC violated federal laws by raising money off claims of voter fraud they knew were false.”
“When allies of former President Donald Trump launched his new legal defense fund, they created a group with few restrictions on how much it can raise, even fewer on how much it can spend, and the ability for deep-pocketed donors to remain anonymous,” the Daily Beast reports.
“In essence, Trump’s legal costs have gotten so high that he’s been forced to find a new way around campaign finance laws—a route that will allow him to draw massive donations from megadonors who could not otherwise write checks large enough to replenish his attorney costs.”
“Candidates for office were practically swimming in grassroots money over the last few cycles, as politics increasingly went online and the money followed,” Politico reports.
“This cycle, the well is drying up.”
“A Politico analysis of federal campaign finance data found a dramatic downturn in small-dollar donations across the board.”
“Dan Cox, the rightwinger who lost the Maryland governor’s race last year, has been telling the press that he doesn’t know who was behind a July 3 statement of candidacy in his name. He even said he alerted the Federal Election Commission to the matter,” the Daily Beast reports.
“It should be a short investigation: The person was the treasurer Cox had hired to do just that.”
“The Daily Beast has obtained emails and text messages that show Cox planned a congressional bid since at least mid-June.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) “is paying himself back hundreds of thousands of dollars for loans he made to his prior Senate campaigns, despite claiming he wouldn’t seek to recoup the money from donors,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“Johnson previously claimed that he wouldn’t seek to repay the $8.4 million in outstanding loans he claimed his campaign owes him for loans in his 2010 and 2016 campaigns.”
“More than seven months after losing his U.S. Senate bid, Republican Herschel Walker’s campaign still has nearly $4.5 million in its account. And some donors are pressing to get their contributions back,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“The campaign of embattled Rep. George Santos, who is facing federal indictment on fraud and money laundering charges, paid the congressmember $85,000 in the second quarter of this year,” Politico reports.
“Though the New York representative says he is running for reelection, he spent virtually nothing on campaigning.”
“The payments the campaign made to Santos stemmed from hundreds of thousands of dollars that the congressmember previously loaned to his campaign. Those loans had sparked questions about how Santos had so much money to lend his political efforts.”
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“An acquaintance of New York City Mayor Eric Adams is at the center of an alleged straw-donor scheme, announced by the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Friday, that funneled tens of thousands of dollars in illicit contributions to the Democratic mayor’s campaign,” Politico reports.
“Dwayne Montgomery is a retired deputy inspector with the NYPD, where he overlapped with Adams before the mayor retired to pursue a political career.”
“According to an indictment unveiled by Bragg Friday, Montgomery was among six people charged with an elaborate scheme to circumvent campaign finance laws and ply the campaign with cash in the hopes of currying favor for future business deals with the city, once Adams was elected.”
Politico: “Super PACs have been growing in strength for more than a decade, but this cycle are swimming in more money than ever. They have started earlier, with more than $14 million in independent expenditures in the primary already… compared with around $950,000 at this time in 2015.”
“The groups are also taking new approaches, deploying staffing at campaign events, paying for door-knocking operations and even sending fundraising texts on candidates’ behalf. Some of the new strategies could test the legal limits on coordination between campaigns and super PACs.”
Mother Jones obtained a list of 36 wealthy contributors who last year wrote big checks to support No Labels’ effort to win 2024 ballot lines in states across the nation.
“Among the No Labels backers are donors who contributed millions of dollars to Republican causes, such as past GOP presidential candidates and super-PACS connected to Republican congressional leadership, and several who have poured money into the Democratic presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden. One donor provided a big chunk of political cash to Donald Trump.”
“Generally, these No Labels supporters, who mostly made contributions of $5,600 to its 2024 project, appear to favor conservative candidates, though many have played both sides of the aisle, financing Republican and Democratic politicians.”
“Once considered natural political allies, the Republican Party and big business are drifting apart. One sign of their estrangement: GOP lawmakers are weaning themselves off money from corporate political-action committees,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Republicans are now less dependent on corporate and industry PACs than at any time in the past three decades… Instead, they are turning to smaller donations from millions of individuals who tend to be wary of big-businesses priorities such as free trade.”
“Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is using her growing national profile to raise money for federal candidates through a new political action committee,” Bridge Michigan reports.
“An aide to the second-term Democrat on Monday filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to form the ‘Fight Like Hell PAC,’ echoing a slogan Whitmer used as she fought for legal abortion rights last year during her own successful re-election campaign.”
“Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration has quietly changed state guidelines, essentially giving its blessing for a state-level political committee he previously ran to move millions of dollars to a super PAC helping his presidential campaign,” NBC News reports.
“For years, elections officials said such a transfer to federal super PACs would not be allowed. But in March — just months before DeSantis formally launched his bid for president — officials at the Florida State Department, the DeSantis administration entity that regulates state elections, changed its handbook to assert that such moves are allowed.”
“The timing is notable because a state-level political committee DeSantis led for the past five years, known as Friends of Ron DeSantis, is widely expected to transfer $80 million to a federal super PAC called Never Back Down that is supporting his just-launched bid for president.”
“A super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential run has raised $500,000 into a separate draft committee that is expected to be transferred directly to his campaign in the coming days,” CBS News reports.
“The group, ‘Never Back Down’ has been encouraging donors to contribute online to the ‘Draft DeSantis 2024 Fund,’ a super PAC created in early March to house money from DeSantis donors until his campaign launch. Super PACs can raise unlimited funds, but they are generally considered expenditure-only, meaning they cannot contribute directly to a candidate.”
“Campaign finance experts called the move ‘unprecedented’ and had mixed reactions on if it violated FEC regulations.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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