MyDD :: July Numbers

July Numbers

by Jerome Armstrong, Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:10:10 PM EST

The July fundraising numbers are out.

As thought, the Obama campaign kicked open the doors of the DNC fundraising operation in June, raising over $20M; and the Obama campaign did much better than expectations, raising over $50M.

So lets review the numbers after July.

McCain
          May      June      July...    Sept-Nov

Raised    21       22        27
Spent     12       27        33
COH       32       27        21
GE                                      84


Obama
          May      June      July...    Sept-Nov

Raised    22       52        51  
Spent     27       23        57
COH       43       72        66         +?
GE

I wasn't able to find out yet how much of the July money that Obama raised was GE-designated. Through June, $12M of the amount raised was GE. It's pretty significant though, that Obama's July COH is lower than his June COH. I think, given that Obama raised just $2M for the GE in June, that the July GE number is also low. And that what they are preparing for is holding off until the fall for raising GE monies, thus, preparing for '$100M raised in a month' Obama stories in mid-Sept and/or mid-Oct?

An overall take though from what we have now, from August 1st on out to Nov, is that McCain has $105M to spend and Obama has $66M to spend. I would imagine that McCain raises very little in August, Obama will significantly out-raise the difference (~50M) in Sept & Oct.

This doesn't account for all of the money raised for the election. There is the Party committee money, and there, the RNC and the DNC fundraising looks like this through the end of July:

RNC
          April    May      June      July

Raised    20       23       26         26
Spent     10       10       12         19    
COH       41       54       68         75
GE                                      


DNC
          April    May      June      July

Raised    5        5         22        28  
Spent     6        5         6         19
COH       4        4         20        29
GE

As you can see, the DNC has dramatically picked up the pace. They've turned a 13:1 deficit ratio into about a 3:1 one, over the past two months, and are now spending the same amount per month as the RNC.

Wrap it all together and this is what we get as a amount of money to spend through the GE for each. Together, the RNC & McCain have $180M, while the DNC and & Obama have $95M. This is a significant spot of $85M that McCain has as an advantage ending July (the difference near entirely due to McCain taking public financing in the GE), down from about $90M June ending, but I'm sure that Obama will comfortably exceed that difference while raising w/o a cap for the GE.

And there is more. Both campaigns are exploiting a loophole in the McCain-Feingold CFR that allows unlimited (iirc) donations to the state parties. I recall going over this in 2002, and feeling that this would at some point expand the power of the state parties in the GE. That time is here. The McCain camp started doing this in May, and raised $8M in June in the states. In July, the Obama campaign also started down this path. I believe that this was part of the rationale around the Rick Davis decentralized/regional operations, and I would be surprised if Republicans don't exploint that loophole to deliver an extra $50M to the battleground states in the last couple of months. I've not seen reports on how much has been raised in the states for July. And I'll need to check on it (or someone else here might know better the law), but I don't even recall any coordination limitations either, on the state money raised.

And this doesn't even touch on the 501c(3,4) and 527 money that will be spent...

Tags: 2008 GE (all tags)

Permalink :: 13 Comments :: Post a Comment

I recall the Ohio Democratic Party ad (none / 0)

hitting McCain on DHL. If there is unlimited money for this on both sides, we can expect basically unlimited ads.

But somehow I thought the individual donors do have a limit to the state party even if in total they can be unlimited.

New Jersey politics and news

by John DE on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:18:21 PM EST

Re: I recall the Ohio Democratic Party ad (none / 0)

I threw out there what I recall, but I may be wrong. There is a limit to the amount that an individual can give to candidates and committees, but I have read reports of $100K contributions made to state parties by individuals, so I don't think it applies to the states, hence, the loophole.

by Jerome Armstrong on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:45:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Question (none / 0)

So once the general election starts, does that mean McCain can't technically fundraise for himself?

by BruinKid on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:19:27 PM EST

Re: Question (none / 0)

Right, he no longer fundraises for himself. And there's only a certain amount of the RNC's funds that can be spent through coordination with his campaign. Though as far as the state money goes, I've not heard of any coordination laws, or restrictions of a publicly financed candidate raising funds for-- uncharted territory.

It seems (afaik), given that the Republicans are already raising tens of millions for state parties this cycle, that there are no coordination laws for either spending or raising funds between the candidate/campaign and the state parties. It'd be good to learn of some clarification on this...

by Jerome Armstrong on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:49:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I believe Obama can covert his funds (none / 0)

I think he can flip his cash over to the general because he opted out of federal funds.

by RandyMI on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:20:10 PM EST

Re: I believe Obama can covert his funds (none / 0)

Right, he can. So whatever he has, he has. At the end of July, it was $67M (and that's combined).

by Jerome Armstrong on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:41:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Jerome - Q about your arithmetic (none / 0)

For McCain, the DNC, and the RNC, the numbers you show work as one would expect:

COH (end of month n-1) + Raised (month n) - Spent (month n) = COH (end of month n).

Obama's numbers don't obey these rules.

In June, he raises $50M, and spends $23M. June's COH should be May's COH + $27M. It's not. Similarly for July.

Is this just a couple of typos, or is there something I'm missing?

by RT on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:29:42 PM EST

Re: Jerome - Q about your arithmetic (none / 0)

Thanks, and now updated correctly... I think. It's tough, cause before the filings are released, we are just working backwards here. I misplaced a couple million here and there, lol, it happens to the best of us :)

Anyway, updated, and if now correct (big if), look at that Obama outspent McCain 57-33 in July.

by Jerome Armstrong on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 09:39:58 PM EST
[ Parent ]

State party money (none / 0)

I remember going through this before 2004. The problem on our side was that the state parties were so dysfunctional that they were largely incapable of raising money. I can see OH doing it this cycle, the OH ED is very familiar with how the DNC raised money in 2004. But near as I can tell the rest of the state parties are still a mess.

If state parties were raising money my understanding was that it would have to go through the coordinated table, but there were reports that Obama blew those off in a number of states.

Would be interesting to hear more, and to understand if the Rick Davis ploy really was designed to harvest state party money.

by souvarine on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 10:09:19 PM EST

Re: State party money (none / 0)

Right, it probably does have to go through the coordinated table. iirc, the Obama/DNC did about $4M in raising for states in June. I've not read anything since.

As for the Rick Davis decentralized ploy, after it was announced, and I read that they were boasting of GOP state parties raising $8M in May, it seemed in the works. I would bet that some form of it remains. I've read that in Florida, the GOP is not going to crank up the machine until September. They may be just lining up all the big funders now, to fund the states during that time.

There's so much money that's going to be spent in the shadows, look at the Chamber of Commerce with their $100M, and the NRA with its $40M, and that's just the ones that are bragging. I expect that in September and October, we will see a deluge of ads like never seen before in a GE.

by Jerome Armstrong on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 10:20:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

in florida... (none / 0)

it's pretty much tradition that gop g/e monies are raised after the primary (which is usually in september, but this year is aug 26). since most of the real primary contests for the last two decades have been on the republican side, this has given their nominees assurance that they will have the money to compete in november...

"Don't underestimate the capacity of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Don't underestimate our ability to screw it up." -- Barack Obama

by bored now on Mon Aug 18, 2008 at 07:13:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: July Numbers (none / 0)

I wish Obama or some surrogates will hit what a scumbag sellout piece of shit McCain is for exploiting loopholes in his own half assed legislation.

http://www.imvotingrepublican.com/ McCain Sucks!

by yitbos96bb on Sun Aug 17, 2008 at 10:13:31 PM EST

Obama may be playing possum... (none / 0)

with the July numbers. I received my first request for a general contribution 18 months to the day (7/16/08) after maxxing out for the primary (1/16/07). However, I suspect they may have held processing my 7/16 contribution into August because I was still receiving emails to contribute during the last two weeks of July. Since the beginning of August, these emails have stopped.

At recent fundraising events, the campaign has asked for a maximum contributon of $10,000 (in Honolulu last Tuesday) to $14,250 (in San Francisco tonight at The Fairmont) per person to be able to get your picture taken with Obama. The allocation of the contribution is not clear but includes the campaign (max- $2,300) and the DNC (max- $14,250) per person. No request for State Party money. The projected haul from tonight in San Francisco is $7 million.

Two people attending tonight's event: George Zimmer of The Men's Warehouse and Craig Newmark of Craig's List.

The campaign has set a general election fundraising goal of $300 million (for Obama for America only). To get there, they will need to raise about $90 million in August, September and October. You would think that after the convention, they will not want Obama to waste his time at high dollar fundraisers.

It looks like the combined DNC/Obama to RNC/McCain fundraising advantage will be about 2:1 - if Obama can raise $300 million and about $100 to $150 million for the DNC. It might be less than this if McCain and Bush keep doing RNC fundraising events after the conventions.

Our Moment Is Now

by mboehm on Mon Aug 18, 2008 at 01:13:18 AM EST

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