Lessons learned from the latest FEC campaign finance reports for the 2024 presidential race : NPR

Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis waves as he leaves the stage after speaking before the 2023 Christian Association for Israel (CUFI) Summit in Arlington, Va., on Monday.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

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Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Republican presidential candidate Florida Governor Ron DeSantis waves as he leaves the stage after speaking before the 2023 Christian Association for Israel (CUFI) Summit in Arlington, Va., on Monday.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

The latest campaign finance data was released on Saturday and offers a window into the financial stability of presidential campaigns.

Here are a few takeaways from the Federal Election Commission’s reports:

1. DeSantis has a small donor problem, this could be a long-term problem

Ron DeSantis’ campaign is heavily reliant on major donors, many of whom have given the maximum allowed, as his campaign tries to catch up with former President Trump in Republican primaries, an NPR analysis of the most recently released campaign finance data shows.

In reality, 70% of DeSantis . sponsors maximum has been given.

Only 15% of DeSantis’ contributions came from small donors who were given less than $200. That presents a potential long-term problem for the Florida governor’s campaign. After joining with much fanfare, a low number indicates a lack of support from the grassroots. For context, Trump’s joint fundraising committee in the 2022 midterm cycle and Vivek Ramaswamy, another GOP candidate, raised more than half of their total from small donors.

The data also shows that DeSantis spent about $8 million in the first five and a half weeks of the campaign. That’s a rate of about $1.5 million a week. While DeSantis has raised the most money among the GOP presidential candidates — just over $20 million and still $12 million in cash left — at a rate of $1.5 million a week, he will need about $42 million more to get to the January 15 caucus in Iowa.

(Also, $3 million of the $20 million raised by DeSantis will be for the general election and cannot be used for the primaries, as political notes.)

Likely why DeSantis is reportedly laying off employees, laying off dozens of employees in a cost-cutting measure, according to NBCNews. It also means that he will be heavily dependent on the super PAC to help him run ads and do a lot of the messaging work normally reserved for candidates and campaigns.

Legally, candidates and the super PACs supporting them are not allowed to have any contact.

2. Trump’s financial health is difficult to gauge at this point

Trump has different fundraising committees — the campaign, the general fundraising committee, and the PAC that supports him. The Joint Fundraising Committee, set up before this presidential election, was able to channel his campaign money, and did so in the tens of millions of dollars.

But these committees have different reporting deadlines than the campaign itself. The end of this month is the next, so the full picture is still unclear. That’s the case for the super PACs that support the rest of these campaigns, by the way, and these super PACs usually only spend a little less than the campaigns themselves.

The Trump campaign says it raised more than $35 million this quarter in conjunction with the joint fundraising committee. Only one 17.7 million USDhowever, has been reported, as of Saturday’s deadline, from the campaign itself this quarter.

That included a transfer about 15 million USD from the general fundraising committee. The New York Times reported that some money from the joint fundraising committee was transferred to another PAC as a way to pay his legal bills. Trump has been indicted in two different states and could face more charges related to election interference and the January 6 uprising.

But Trump may not face DeSantis’ grassroots fundraising problem. During the 2022 mid-cycle, the joint fundraising committee raised more than $150 million, and more than half came from small donors.

3. Rich people burn their own money

In addition to Trump, two other Republican candidates are very wealthy – Ramaswamy, former tech CEO estimated to be worth about $630 millionand North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a billionaire.

So far, Ramaswamy has donated or lent $16 million to himself, while Burgum has lent himself $10.2 million, according to federal campaign fundraising data.

Ramaswamy has also spent more than $10 million to date, the most in the GOP presidential candidate’s primary campaign. That’s a 53% burn rate. Burgum, who was only in the race for three weeks when these reports had to be filed, also spent a significant amount of the money he poured in. He spent a total of $8.1 million. That’s a 69% write rate.

Ramaswamy has raised about $3 million from donors to date, less than DeSantis, Trump, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley ($7.6 million) and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott (7). million dollars), but more than former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ($1.7 million), Burgum ($1.6 million), former Vice President Mike Pence ($1.2 million), Miami Mayor Francis Suarez ($945,000), former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson ($502,000) and former Representative Will Hurd ($270,000).

4. RFK Jr. likely won’t beat Biden, but there’s no denying that part of the country is listening to him

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine conspiracy theorist critical of the war in Ukraine and grandson of former President John F. Kennedy, who is challenging President Biden in the party primaries Democracy, has raised about $6.4 million to date.

He has $4.5 million in cash on hand, more than a third of what he’s raised comes from small donors, and he hasn’t loaned himself any even though his family he is very rich. (His family is overwhelm protest let him run.)

About $100,000 of the $4 million in larger donations for him actually came from a unusual crossover of Republican donors DeSantis and Trump.

If he runs in the GOP primaries, RFK Jr. will be fifth in terms of both total donations from individuals and cash available.

Now, his total doesn’t equal what Biden donated for his reelection, so he’s not a viable threat to Biden’s abandonment. With all of Biden’s committees combined, the president made $72 million in the second quarter alonemore than any other Republican candidate.

But Kennedy’s total was certainly enough to be able to maintain a compact campaign and create a push that continues to attract attention.

Other notable points:

• Scott has the most money among the Republican candidates with $21 million in cash on hand because he’s spending money left over from his Senate campaigns. But his spending is outpacing what he is raising. He raised $7.6 million in this campaign, but spent $8.3 million, a burn rate of 109%.
• Christie raised $1.6 million for this quarterly report, which covers only the first three weeks of his campaign. Although it’s not a huge amount, he spent only $66,000, burn rate is only 4%. Christie’s doesn’t have a big run and he mostly relies on earned media, in other words, media coverage that gets him noticed. With those factors in place and the super PAC supporting him, he will likely continue to compete.
• coin are struggling to maintain a serious campaign. It’s unclear what Pence’s base will be and the sponsors aren’t there. He has raised a total of $1.2 million. Now, he’s only spending 6% of the money he’s raised and has $1 million in cash on hand, but it’s likely to be Iowa or bankruptcy for the former vice president.
• Suárez announced two weeks before the end of the application deadline, but it looks like he went down the well with some of his known donors. He raised $945,000, but 97% of that came from larger donors. He’s going to have to get more grassroots support to stand a real chance — even if just garnering a lot of attention for a potential VP position, if that’s what he wants.