Fundraising reports reshuffle race for GOP nomination

The Hill ^ | October 16, 2015 | Matt Mackowiak

[Isara]

Many have predicted that the 2016 race for president would be the year of the super-PAC. The thinking goes: Candidates don't need money — they need a sugar daddy to fund a super-PAC.

Not so fast, my friend.

Already two formidable and impressive Republican candidates, former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, have bowed out of the presidential race due to slow campaign fundraising. Perry raised under $300,000 in the third quarter and Walker has $1 million in debt. Both possessed super-PACs that were flush with millions in cash.

Why does hard money fundraising matter?

Because there are certain things that only a campaign can do.

The campaign owns the candidate's time and movements. The campaign has sole responsibility for ballot access and debates. The campaign has headquarters staff, field staff and large expenditures on data, digital and polling.

These costs matter.

Many candidates are running lean operations in the 2016 race, and that's smart given the large field and the uncertainty of the race.

But lean campaigns often cannot scale up quickly enough when their moment comes, a problem we have seen for the Donald Trump (R), Carly Fiorina (R) and Ben Carson (R) campaigns in particular.

Now that the third quarter fundraising reports have been made public, we know a few things to be true about other Republican candidates:

1. Remarkably, Sen. Ted Cruz's (Texas) campaign has the most cash on hand: $13.5 million.

2. Sen. Marco Rubio's (Fla.) campaign has slightly more cash on hand than former Gov. Jeb Bush's (Fla.), although general elections funds may account for that difference.

3. Sen. Rand Paul's (Ky.) campaign has spent 94 percent of the money it has raised for this race, and has $2.1 million cash on hand because it transferred 75 percent of that amount from his Senate campaign. He is financially running on fumes.

4. Cruz and Rubio are both running the most efficient campaigns with the lowest burn-rates among the top tier candidates. Fiorina is also running a very efficient campaign.

5. The campaigns of Govs. John Kasich (Ohio) and Chris Christie (N.J.) raised similar amounts and have similar cash on hand and will be in a steel-cage death match in New Hampshire.

6. The cash on hand numbers show a marginal difference, with Bush having $10.3 million, Rubio $11 million, Carson $11.5 million and Cruz $13.5 million. One of these four individuals, plus Trump, is most likely to be the ultimate nominee.

7. Carson's $20 million haul is impressive, but he is spending a huge amount of money to raise those funds. And he is now inexplicably taking two weeks off from the campaign trail to promote his new book.

My takeaway is this: Cruz and Rubio had the most impressive reports, even though Cruz doubled Rubio's overall third-quarter haul. They both have low burn-rates and strong cash on hand, signaling that they will have staying power. Cruz has the advantage of having more individual donors (he doubled the number of individual donors in the third quarter), which likely indicates that he will have a strong fourth quarter.

Fundraising matters: Strong fundraising starts a virtuous cycle. Weak fundraising leads to a vicious cycle.

Just ask Scott Walker and Rick Perry.

Mackowiak is syndicated columnist; an Austin, Texas-based Republican consultant; and former Capitol Hill and George W. Bush administration aide.

[Isara]

FYI

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

4. Cruz and Rubio are both running the most efficient campaigns with the lowest burn-rates among the top tier candidates. Fiorina is also running a very efficient campaign.

Trump has spent less than both of them, and far less when we include their SuperPacs.

[DoughtyOne]

Here's the Reuter's polling figures for today.

Carson's trend is interesing.

Cruz's is also.

Fiorina, heh heh heh...

(be careful not to move the target line [with your cursor] off the far right to see the figures for today accruately)

REUTERS

[maine-iac7]

Trump has spent less than both of them,

He doesn't have too - he's getting all the free publicity from the press

[Isara]

Trump has been getting a lot of free publicity from the media and talk shows. I’ve turned Rush’s program off more than a month ago. It turned into Trump’s Show.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Soon the whole country will be Trumped, and it will be glorious.

[Isara]

Soon the whole country will be Trumped, and it will be glorious.

Are you sure that Trump's reign would be glorious? Maybe you are, because you are not a Conservative.

Presidential Candidates Comparison (Cruz vs. Trump)

Budget, Spending & Debt
Civil Liberties
Education
Energy & Environment
Foreign Policy & Defense
Free Market
Health Care & Entitlements
Immigration
Moral Issues
Second Amendment
Taxes, Economy & Trade

More at Conservative Review: https://www.conservativereview.com/2016-presidential-candidates

[SmokingJoe]

From the WSJ:
Republican front-runner Donald Trump has among the highest burn rate, spending 96% of the $5.8 million he raised. While in the second quarter his campaign was largely self-financed, he raised $3.8 million from outside sources in the third quarter.

www.wsj.com/articles/presidential-candidates-burn-through-cash-quickly-fec-filings-show-1444952282

At 96%, Trump has one of the highest burn rates in the business. Efficiency is not how much you spent, it's what percentage of what you took in that you spent, and what you have left over to fight a long hard war, and in that regard, Cruz is tops.

[Hugin]

Efficiency is not how much you spent, it's what percentage of what you took in that you spent, and what you have left over to fight a long hard war, and in that regard, Cruz is tops.

Wrong. Efficiency is what results you get for what you have spent. Trump has spent far less than anyone else and is trouncing everyone else in the polls. That sounds pretty efficient to me.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

At 96%, Trump has one of the highest burn rates in the business. Efficiency is not how much you spent, it's what percentage of what you took in that you spent, and what you have left over to fight a long hard war, and in that regard, Cruz is tops.

This is a false comparison-- since you're talking about people who have spent far more than just 5 million, not including Superpacs, but currently have on hand 10 or 13 million. It's not the money they have on hand that counts (Trump literally can just write another check for another million dollars), but how much money they've spent over the campaign time period and what they've accomplished with it. Clearly Trump wins on this.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

The immigration thing with Cruz is absolutely false. Cruz is terrible on immigration, as seen here:

“And I’d like to make a final point to those advocacy groups that are very engaged in this issue and rightly concerned about addressing our immigration system, and in particular about addressing the situation for the 11 million who are currently in the shadows. If this amendment is adopted to the current bill the effect would be that those 11 million under this current bill would still be eligible for RPI status.** They would still be eligible for legal status and indeed under the terms of the bill they would be eligible for LPR status as well, so that they are out of the shadows, which the proponents of this bill repeatedly point to as their principle objective — to provide a legal status for those who are here illlegally to be out of the shadows. This amendment would allow that to happen …

“And a second point to those advocacy groups that are so passionately engaged. In my view if this committee rejects this amendment, and I think everyone here views it as quite likely this committee will choose to reject this amendment, in my view that decision will make it much, much more likely that this entire bill will fail in the House of Representantives. I don’t want immigration reform to fail. I want immigration reform to pass, and so I would urge people of good faith on both sides of the aisle, if the objective is to pass common sense immigration reform that secures the borders, that improves legal immigration, and that allows those who are here illegally to come in out of the shadows, then we should look for areas of bipartisan agreement and compromise to come together and this amendment — I believe if this amendment were to pass the chances of this bill passing into law would increase dramatically, and so I would urge the committee to give it full consideration and to adopt the amendment.”

http://www.kausfiles.com/2015/05/21/cruz-and-amnesty-round-ii-the-telltale-video/

Another article on this topic, describing how Cruz redefines amnesty as only referring to a “pathway to citizenship,” and won’t declare he supports deportation:

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/ted_cruz_vs_donald_trump_whos_stronger_on_immigration.html

For “healthcare” and the like, I suspect that website is also relying on Trump’s past positions, not his current ones.

[kygolfman]

I am stunned when I read so many posts here by people who are huge Trump fans.
I don’t dislike him, but at the very least shouldn’t we be skeptical about his core beliefs?
I will give him the benefit of the doubt about some things because he is a businessman in NYC. But since when do we blindly trust someone to be a conservative, when he has given at least some vocal support to socialized medicine, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, and a “100 percent agreement on the Supreme Court Kelo decision?

[Jim Noble]

Why does hard money fundraising matter?

Because it feeds an army of consultants for whom self-interest is primary, fuels corrupt media with advertising at inflated rates, and it then pays for both to pimp their services to weak-minded wannabes.

That about it?

[Isara]

Ted Cruz: ‘When It Comes to Immigration: Legal, Good; Illegal, Bad’

Ted Cruz Reminds Americans Rubio, Walker, and Bush, All Supported Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants (video)

There should be no pathway to citizenship for those who are here illegally. I don’t support amnesty. And I find it really striking at the Cleveland debate, that divide was evident for all to see. Let me step back for a second. Let me talk about the amnesty issue. Because I actually think the amnesty issue is broader than just another policy issue on which people can disagree. President Obama famously said his goal was to fundamentally transform the United States of America. And one of the critical tools he is using to try to do that is to allow millions of people to come here illegally. There’s seven billion people on the face of the planet, and an awful lot of them would like to come here. Now if they want to come here legally and follow the law, great. You and I both come from immigrant families who followed the law.

But the Obama plan is to allow millions to come in illegally and try to grant them amnesty, grant them a pathway to citizenship, and they believe they’ll vote Democrat in perpetuity to keep the big-government Democrats in power. It is a transformational policy, if amnesty goes through. It changes who we are as a country, if Obama and the Democrats succeed in this. And what’s striking in Cleveland, is a majority of the candidates on that stage have advocated amnesty, and not just advocated amnesty, but advocated it for years. Many of them vocally, vigorously, publicly. As you mentioned, you heard my friend Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) join Chuck Schumer in authoring the Chuck Schumer amnesty plan. In doing so, he was enthusiastically supported by Jeb Bush. In doing so, he was enthusiastically supported by Scott Walker. And President Obama.

Both CNN and Politifact did fact-checks of my statement that a majority of candidates on that stage have supported amnesty, and both of them concluded, yep, it’s true. They went through the records of one after the other after the other. And let me tell you why that matters so much. We remember back in 2012, where we nominated a candidate, Mitt Romney, a good man. But someone who had proposed Romneycare. And the problem was, when it came to the general election, when you have a candidate who’s been an advocate for health insurance plan almost exactly like Obamacare, our nominee wasn’t able to make the election about Obamacare. He wasn’t able to challenge Barack Obama effectively on Obamacare, because he had written a proposal just like it.

The same thing is true in this instance. If we nominate a candidate who’s been a vigorous, vocal, and aggressive advocate of amnesty, then the Republican candidate won’t stand up and challenge Hillary Clinton on amnesty, and certainly won’t do so effectively. Because anyone who tries to do so, the response will be: Gosh, just a couple of years ago, before you were running for president, you agreed with me [that] we should grant amnesty.

I have never supported amnesty and never will support amnesty. I believe in the rule of law. You know, at the end of the day, these principles aren’t complicated. When it comes to immigration: Legal, good; illegal, bad.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

I have never supported amnesty and never will support amnesty.

It's all in the definition. Granting legal status to 11 million (actually 40 million) illegals is amnesty. Cruz only defines amnesty as something that leads to citizenship. Cruz's position is that he can grant legal status and bar them from naturalization, which by the way is a nonsense position.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

I don’t dislike him, but at the very least shouldn’t we be skeptical about his core beliefs?

I don't think anybody doubts that Trump is probably a moderate on many issues and very conservative on others, which is exactly why he is able to lead among moderates and even liberals, while people like Cruz only has his strongest support among conservatives.

When you're looking for a candidate for President you're not looking for perfection. Obviously with Trump we are making a cost/value analysis here. We value Trump because he' right on the most important issues: immigration, trade, and is excellent on the economy. He's also pretty good on the 2nd amendment and healthcare, even if you doubt the sincerity of his current positions. But you take that risk and you do an analysis to compare the pros and the cons. The pros clearly win.

Cruz can't be our candidate since he can't win. He just has no charisma nor broad support. And he's terrible on immigration and trade. Carson is terrible because he doesn't really have policies. He has slogans, and the best he comes off as is as a "nice man," but he is for amnesty and seems generally uninformed in many areas. We can go down the list on this, and Trump comes out on top every time.

[Jane Long]

Yes, that CR chart/comparison is a joke - it’s a shame, too, considering Mark Levin is now associated with CR. I’ve emailed both Mark and CR about an obvious slight against Trump.

To give Trump a red dot on a Free Trade is absurd. Not to mention Civil Liberties and Healthcare. Trump wants America great for ALL and he wants affordable, private healthcare available across state lines.

Even Levin has touted Trumps strengths in these areas.

[Isara]

You don’t have to worry a thing. “Soon the whole country will be Trumped, and it will be glorious.”

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Indeed, although I expect grinding of teeth and wailing in some quarters, including with some people on FR!

[Isara]

Indeed, although I expect grinding of teeth and wailing in some quarters, including with some people on FR!

Not at all! When we follow the Principle, there is nothing to worry about.

For you, please go to sleep and wake up on January 17, 2017. Trump will make everything perfect for you. You don't have to do a thing.