For any Republican presidential candidate other than Donald Trump, participating in the first primary debate on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee is an essential hurdle to overcome. It is the first and, for many candidates, perhaps the only opportunity to make their voices heard on the national stage.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will attend the debate, which will be broadcast on Fox News, but many of the candidates are getting creative and bending the campaign finance law to get involved.
The Republican National Committee has set minimum viability requirements that many candidates are having trouble meeting.
I spoke with Fredreka Schouten, national policy writer at CNN about what’s going on, whether it’s legal or illegal, and what she can say about Trump and other candidates based on campaign finance reports and personal financial disclosures that tell the real story.
Lotteries and Gift Cards: How Are Republicans Trying to Attract Taxpayers?
WOLF : You’ve written about the creative ways Republicans are trying to reach 40,000 donors. What are they doing?
SCHOUTEN : And what are they not???
Some of the lesser-known candidates have tried unorthodox ways to meet part of the requirements to reach the Republican debate stage in August, such as that they must raise funds from at least 40,000 unique donors (including at least 200 donors in 20 states and territories).
The offer that appears to be the most generous is that of a Super PAC (political action committee) that supports Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s candidacy for the Republican party’s nomination.
The committee offers what it calls the “Francis Free College Tuition”: with contributions of $1 to the candidate’s campaign, one can enter a lottery of up to $15,000 for a year of paid college tuition.
One of the more unusual tactics seems to have paid off. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a former software CEO who is funding his own presidential campaign, offered $20 gift cards to 50,000 donors in exchange for a contribution of at least $1.
Burgum announced on CNN’s “Inside Politics” this week that he has reached the donor threshold.
Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, meanwhile, recently adopted an idea put forward by another Republican presidential candidate, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and decided to offer fundraisers a cut of the money they help raise on his behalf.
That’s great?
WOLF : Essentially, this is paying someone for a political contribution. How is that cool? Is there a precedent for this type of action?
SCHOUTEN : The strategy raised many questions. The Burgum campaign, for example, insists that it has analyzed all possible options and that its approach is legally sound.
I interviewed two campaign finance experts who argue the opposite and argue that reimbursing a donor with a gift card could be construed as a violation of federal law prohibiting the practice of making donations in someone else’s name. However, this is not a consensus.
And, frankly, many candidates are at little risk of getting into real trouble with regulators.
Someone could file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), arguing that the scheme violates the law. But the FEC — which is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans — has often struggled to agree on enforcement actions.
Who will participate in the debate?
WOLF : At this point, do we have a concrete idea of who qualified for the first debate? And has Trump already committed to participating?
SCHOUTEN : In fact, we still don’t know who qualified.
Several Republicans — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Ramaswamy — say they have reached the donor threshold.
But there are other hurdles: Candidates must reach at least 1% in three national polls, or at least two national polls and two polls from separate states where there is early voting. Therefore, the research framework is still gaining contours. Let’s wait.
The former president, who leads current polls, appears not to be inclined to participate in the debate next month, but he also says he has not yet made up his mind. “When you have a big lead, you don’t do this,” Trump said of the debate during an interview with Fox News earlier this week.
Who is not getting fundraisers?
WOLF : We’re learning a lot from the fundraising reports. I was surprised, for example, to see in your article that Christie brought in more contributions in the recent fundraising period than former Vice President Mike Pence. Which candidates are currently satisfied and which are desperate?
SCHOUTEN : Pence, who raised about $1.2 million in the second quarter, is certainly struggling for a former vice president. But that is perhaps not surprising, given the size that Trump – his former boss and now enemy – has in the hardline Republican base.
Newer GOP candidates like Hutchinson and former Representative Will Hurd still appear to have a long way to go to secure the money needed to sustain their campaigns — or even to make it to the debate stage next month in Wisconsin.
We focused a little bit on DeSantis. He ranks second in the polls behind Trump and raked in an enviable $20 million during the quarter. However, about $3 million of that amount is general election money that cannot be spent on the primaries.
And it spent money at a rapid pace, spending about 40% of its total take in the first six weeks or so after entering the race.
Over the weekend, the campaign confirmed to CNN that it cut some staff after Politico reported that “less than 10 staff” from event planning had been cut.
(Our colleague Steve Contorno has an excellent piece on where the DeSantis campaign stands and whether there really is a major shift in strategy underway.)
Trump has earned nearly $1 billion since leaving office
WOLF : You also wrote about the nearly $1 billion that Trump and his wife Melania claimed, in recent financial disclosures, they have generated as income since leaving the White House. How does Trump make money these days?
SCHOUTEN : The former president has business interests that span the globe, from golf courses to licensing deals. That hasn’t changed.
Personally, what I found interesting about the recent release was the profitability of some of his talks.
Trump earned $2.5 million for doing celebrity commentary at a pay-per-view boxing match, for example. However, Melania Trump was paid $155,000 to give a speech in 2021 to a pro-Trump Super PAC – something that had not been clearly disclosed in Super PAC records at the time.
What’s going on with Biden?
WOLF : CNN reported last week that some Democrats are unnerved by how seriously President Joe Biden is taking his re-election campaign. What does the fundraising data suggest?
SCHOUTEN : Biden’s revenue — when combined with that of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) — is about $72 million for the quarter, according to his campaign announcement.
That’s a respectable amount, albeit short of the pace set by President Barack Obama and the DNC at this point in Obama’s re-election.
The record, however, shows that Biden spent very little money, which will certainly add to some Democrats’ angst as he prepares for re-election.
As of June 30, for example, he had just four employees on the campaign payroll. (DeSantis, on the other hand, had about 90 people on his campaign staff.)
Possibly alleviating Democrats’ concerns: As incumbent president, the DNC can act in support of his re-election — so the party’s staff and resources benefit Biden. And there is still a packed field of Republicans who will have to fight each other in the coming months for the right to face Biden next fall.
How is this report made?
WOLF : Finally, how does CNN report this data? I’m always amazed at the detail you and our colleagues like David Wright discover in these reports. What are the general lines of your action and what are the new challenges in these elections?
SCHOUTEN : With too much coffee and too little sleep.
Well, seriously, we have a plan for each file day about the stories we have to follow. David usually looks out for reports that come in on time and takes the most important numbers that help show the big picture, while I can dig a little deeper into the individual records.
We have to be very aware of all the breaking news that we see in the reports, and we often write individual stories about interesting developments.
A day later, we typically publish an article on the main findings to give our audience an idea of all the main headlines from the presidential and congressional races.
And then we investigated a little more.
Fortunately, a colleague from CNN’s visual data team, Alex Leeds Matthews, joined us to do more data analysis. His assessment of the numbers spawned an interesting chart published earlier this week that details how much the Trump campaign has benefited financially from its legal troubles this year.
One of the challenges of this election is the sheer number of Republican presidential candidates – and their lined up Super PACs that we will be tracking – along with the increasing use of so-called “black money” – or undisclosed money – involved in campaigns on both sides of the political aisle.
In every election cycle, candidates and their allies find a new way to raise and spend money, and we need to find new ways to track it.
David added this important observation that sums up why sleepless nights are worth it: “Politics is full of twists and turns and reliable data can be hard to come by, but the money – who has it, who doesn’t and how it’s spent – often tells the story.”
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
