Whatever happens tonight in Iowa, the immutable laws of campaign finance will begin to weigh on the various campaigns as fundraising dries up for the lower-tier candidates.
For all but the multibillionaire self-funding types, a dead-broke campaign means a “suspended campaign,” in the parlance of the political consultants.
Jeb Bush’s fundraising juggernaut has run out of steam, Ben Carson’s money machine has cranked down, and Chris Christie and Rand Paul have just a little more than $1 million in each of their campaign bank accounts.
Wait, even Jeb! is running out of cash?
Bush, once known for his shock-and-awe fundraising prowess, saw his campaign raise just $7.1 million in the fourth quarter of last year, compared to more than $13 million during the prior period. He left the end of the year with $7.6 million in cash on hand, according to a Federal Election Commission filing released Sunday.
His super PAC Right to Rise also reported a plunge in new money. The group raised just $15 million in the second half of the year — a massive drop-off from the $103 million it raised in the first half.
Ben Carson’s numbers look, if anything, far worse: Over 85 percent of his fundraising dollars came before the November 13 Paris terrorist attacks — after which his support began to rapidly decline amid the perception that the former neurosurgeon was unprepared to take on the role of commander-in-chief.
But senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz each had strong fundraising fourth quarters:
[Rubio’s] campaign had its best fundraising quarter yet, pulling in nearly $14.2 million in the fourth quarter — more than double the amount of the prior quarter and double the haul from Bush.
Cruz raised $20.5 million in 2015’s final quarter, nearly $8 million more than in the third quarter. He finished the year with nearly $18.7 million in the bank — though he’s sure to have spent plenty of money in January leading up to tonight’s caucuses.
And Trump?
Well Donald J. Trump is different. Who else can loan his own campaign $10 million?
Not that Trump has been spending big — the Donald has taken extreme advantage of free media, spending less than half of what Ted Cruz put down in the final three months of 2015. So, where is Trump’s money going?
The single largest vendor to the Trump campaign funding was himself. He spent $826,590 in payments his TAG Air, Inc, which owns a fleet of aircraft including his campaign jet. Additional outlays to Trump businesses include $70,915 to Trump Tower Commercial LLC and $3,000 to Trump Restaurants LLC.
Trump’s campaign had nearly $7 million in the bank by the start of 2016.
And, of course, there are all those hats . . .
About $450,000 ― or nearly 7 percent of all Trump’s fourth-quarter spending ― went towards hats, presumably including the now-iconic hats bearing Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
“Unorthodox” doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Fund-Raising Numbers: Republicans’ Fourth Quarters