A fact of life in US politics that seems to have gotten worse with every election cycle since 1968.
Candidates’ Receipts and Spending as of 12/31/15 (Official Campaign only) from Politico Tracker.
Hillary Clinton – Raised $115.6 million; Spent $77.6 million
Bernie Sanders – Raised $75 million; Spent $46.7 million
Ben Carson – Raised $53.9 million; Spent $47.5 million
Ted Cruz – Raised $47.6 million; Spent $28.4 million
Jeb Bush – Raised $31.9 million; Spent $24.3 million
Donald Trump – Raised $19.4 million; Spent $12.4 million
Rand Paul – Raised $11.5 million; Spent $11.2 million
Carly Fiorina – Raised $11.5 million; Spent $10.2 million
John Kasich – Raised $7.6 million; Spent $5 million
Santorum – Raised $1.2 million; Spent $1.2 million
It can’t go unmentioned that Jeb Bush’s super PAC has spent $54 million on his behalf. Fiorina was dipping into her super PAC for what is technically campaign functions. Ted Cruz’s super PAC raised something in excess of $40 million but it’s not clear that they spent much in 2015. Hillary’s main super PAC spent $5 million in 2015. At this point in the full operation of Citizen’s United, super PAC money isn’t as efficient as campaign funds. None the less, Jeb? has consumed $78.3 milion and is sitting at less than 5% in the Iowa polls, better in NH but at fifth place he’s far behind.
While others may disagree, these numbers point out the weakness of the Clinton candidacy. She began with near 100% name recognition and high approval ratings and is barely holding a lead in Iowa and trailing by a large margin in NH against a candidate that began with almost no name recognition with the general public and has outspent him by 66% (more if her super PAC spending were included).
Update:
Marco Rubio – Raised $39.5 million; Spent $29.7 million
Martin O’Malley – Raised $4.8 million; Spent $4.6 million
Mike Huckabee – Raised $4 million; Spent $3.8 million
Jim Gilmore – Raised $0.09 million; Spent $0.18 million
Not seeing how Santorum, MOM, Huckabee and Gilmore last beyond Tuesday. Like the great administrator that he is, Chris Christie is the only one that hasn’t filed his FEC report.
Update
Was off by a day wrt when O’Malley would drop out. Did it tonight while larger caucuses were still in progress. But wouldn’t object to him continuing to play a role in the DEM party, unless he wants to get on the neoliberalcon train.
Darn — Huckabee also didn’t wait until tomorrow. [Seriously messing with projection record.]
February 3 (Wednesday) – Rand Paul drops out. His COH at year end was only $1.2 million. (Not as tough or stubborn as the old man?) And apparently he was excluded from the next debate. (Note Christie only had $1.3 million; so, he’s limping into NH and should be out after it.)
Wednesday — double darn. Santorum just had to wait that extra day before dropping out. Maybe it wasn’t his lack of voters or campaign debts that did it but maybe his fee-fees were hurt upon hearing that there would be no “kiddie table” debate on Saturday (apparently didn’t get the hint from his last place finish in Iowa and being in last place in the national and NH polls). (Carly is pissed because it’s sexist to exclude the only female candidate from the next debate just because she didn’t meet the criteria. Truly loathe women who pull this sort of stunt.)
Update #2
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has raised about $3 million in the past 24 hours since his narrow loss to Hillary Clinton in Monday’s leadoff Iowa caucuses.
Sanders’ campaign says the total is the most money it has raised in a single day during the senator’s presidential campaign.
Sanders supporters are demonstrating that they are highly realistic. Fully understanding that Sanders needs a huge amount of money to compete with Goliath, and they are stepping up to the plate. (With a bit of a FU to TPTB including the media that is working overtime to once again shove the left into a coffin.) It’s going to take $25 million in February to get through SuperTuesday in decent shape.
US News – In final Iowa blitz, an outraged Hillary Clinton is channeling rival Bernie Sanders’ economic anger
OMFG — From “No We Can’t” to feeling the Bern in less than a week. (Oh, and that ticket price fundraiser a few days ago in Philly with a shadow banking operation.) She a liberal, no a progressive, no severely centrist.
Less authenticity than Chauncey Gardner.
Did Mitt Romney flip-flop and/or lie more than this?
“OMFG — From “No We Can’t” to feeling the Bern in less than a week.”
Don’t worry, it won’t last.
She only needs to fool all the people long enough for them to vote for her. She has a warehouse full of handi-wipes to clean her slate every other day.
Objectively, Hillary Clinton has run one of the worst campaigns in primary political history.
No one who started out with leads as large as she has has come lose to blowing them with one exception: Ted Kennedy.
It is breathtaking.
To be fair Kennedy didn’t enter that primary until November, didn’t have a years in the making campaign team, war chest, and 90% of the DEM institutional power, didn’t begin with a 60% polling among Democrats (52% to 25% wasn’t as good as Clinton’s 60% to 3%), and he was challenging a sitting DEM POTUS. (For me, the saddest part of his campaign was dragging and obviously unhappy Joan Kennedy around with him.) What restored Carter’s standing with the public was the same thing that ended up defeating him in the general election.
Honestly can’t recall a prior campaign when the decks were so stacked in favor of one candidate. And in those instances where one candidate had large advantages, challengers never came close to winning the nomination.
” Like the great administrator that he is, Chris Christie is the only one that hasn’t filed his FEC report. “
ROTFL
Did manage to get it in a little late. Bought himself a few hours to allow the media to move on from the campaigns fundraising reports and overlook the fact that he ended 2015 with only a $1 million COH and raised only $3 million. Fiorina and Kasich are in better financial shape than he is.
If a politician can’t motivate people with a sense of purpose the only other option is to buy their votes.
The former takes hard work and hard and soft cash is easier to come by. If it were legal, many people would happily sell their vote for ten bucks directly in their pockets.
Indeed, the reason for banning liquor sales on election day is because many would sell their vote for a few slugs of cheap whiskey. It was easy to keep track before the secret ballot.
OTOH, at least the got something for their vote.
Blue Whale Tail
Billmon
Given Clinton’s fundraising model, that’s a surprisingly good haul for her in January. As was her 4th quarter 2015 collections. Last year she came close to matching the campaign funds raised by all the GOP large dollar value donation candidates. One difference is that GOP donors could contribute to more than one or all the GOP candidates.
CNN – Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton stack late February with fundraisers across the country
A note on this — Several months ago, a Clinton campaign manager said that her fundraising budget for the primary was $100 million. As of 12/31/15 She’d raised $115 million (not including her super PAC and other PACs. Either there’s so much more easy money for her campaign to pick up or her spending is also way over budget. Who knew little people donating an average of $27 could cause Mrs. Inevitable to continue scrambling for bucks from banksters.
Also not in the NH debate, she bragged that Henry Kissinger supports her. I’ve always made it a point not to vote for anyone that Kissinger supports.