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      Late Lawsuit Could Shape Political Ad Wars in Final Days of Campaign

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      House Democrats are suing to stop Republicans from using a legal loophole to bolster their Senate candidates.A legal battle is playing out in D.C. federal court that could determine how much money the Democratic and Republican Parties can pump into advertising in pivotal congressional races in the final week of the 2024 campaign and beyond.At issue is what Democrats say is a potentially illegal political advertising strategy that Republicans have used in recent weeks to try to overcome a significant fund-raising deficit in states with critical Senate races, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania.With less than two weeks until Election Day, House Democrats’ campaign arm has sued the Federal Election Commission for failing to stop the Republicans and are seeking a ruling to either bar the practice or clear the way to use it themselves.A hearing on the matter is set for Monday, and both parties expect a ruling as soon as Tuesday, either blocking or allowing the practice in the critical last stretch before Election Day.Here’s what to know:Democrats have been dominating Republicans in fund-raising in key Senate races.Continuing a recent trend, Democratic Senate candidates have been trouncing their Republican rivals in fund-raising battles in pivotal races across the country.In Ohio, Senator Sherrod Brown has raised about four times as much money as his Republican challenger, Bernie Moreno. In Montana, Senator Jon Tester has raised about three times as much as Tim Sheehy. And in Arizona, Representative Ruben Gallego has raised more than twice as much as Kari Lake.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Miriam Adelson Goes Searching for More Trump Donors

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      Miriam Adelson has been spending the final few weeks of the general election campaign doing something that might be unexpected for one of the richest people in the world: asking other people for money.Ms. Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate with a net worth of $35 billion, has put $100 million into her pro-Trump super PAC, Preserve America, this year. The super PAC was totally funded by her, and it spent almost all of her money throughout the summer and fall. The super PAC, established in June when President Biden was the nominee, initially did not anticipate spending money to air television ads in October when it expected the Trump campaign or other groups to be shouldering much of the advertising load. Ms. Adelson was not eager to commit even more money, group officials have said.Yet Ms. Adelson, a physician and a conservative megadonor, and her operatives have been eager to keep Mr. Trump on television in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan, especially given that he is being outspent by Vice President Kamala Harris and her allies. So other donors have said that beginning in early October, Ms. Adelson has been soliciting other billionaires to help bridge the gap to keep the group on the air through Election Day.“We had an initial $100 million,” said Dave Carney, a senior adviser to the group. “We’re trying to raise more, and Dr. Adelson has been a fund-raising star getting more people on board.”Super PACs formed by a single rich donor can struggle to raise outside money as fellow billionaires wonder why the patron won’t foot the whole bill. Ms. Adelson has raised over $10 million for her super PAC over the last few weeks, a spokesman for her said. Supporters of the group who will be made public in a Thursday filing with the Federal Election Commission include the conservative billionaires Liz Uihlein, Ronnie Cameron and Diane Hendricks, who gave $3 million, $2 million and $1 million, respectively. Mr. Carney said the group now had over 100 donors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Leans On Creative Bookkeeping to Keep Up in Cash Race

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      Donald J. Trump’s political operation has been taking extraordinary measures in a bid to stay financially competitive with Vice President Kamala Harris, deploying aggressive and creative accounting strategies that test the legal limits of how far a candidate can go to offload the core costs of running for president.The most startling example is the official payroll of the former president’s campaign committee.He had only 11 people on it, as of August.That is a tiny fraction of the more than 200 people Mr. Trump had on his campaign payroll four years ago and the more than 600 people on Ms. Harris’s campaign payroll in August, federal records show.The reason Mr. Trump now has so few on the payroll is that he is shuffling costs from his campaign committee to other accounts allied or shared with the Republican Party. The goal of the seemingly arcane accounting maneuver is to free up millions of dollars, which would otherwise be locked up in party and fund-raising accounts, to spend on television ads for Mr. Trump.And the shifting of payroll is just one piece of the financial puzzle.Mr. Trump has also not been using his campaign committee to pay for many of the big rallies that are the signature events of his campaign, according to two people with knowledge of his accounting who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Instead, the Trump team is, for accounting purposes, treating those events as fund-raisers by including backstage photo lines for contributors or donor round tables.Mr. Trump and Senator JD Vance of Ohio greeting supporters backstage before a campaign rally in Asheboro, N.C., in August.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Mayor Adams’s Rivals Reveal Fund-Raising Totals. Mr. Adams? Who Knows.

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      With Mayor Eric Adams’s future in flux as he faces federal bribery charges, his challengers prepare for the possibility of an election before the June primary.With Mayor Eric Adams facing a five-count federal indictment and at least four Democratic primary challengers next year, the quarterly fund-raising reporting deadline on Friday carried heightened intrigue.Would Mr. Adams see a significant drop-off in donations? And of the candidates seeking to replace him, who would make the most of the mayor’s problems?The answers were only partially revealed on Friday, with Mr. Adams’s fund-raising disclosures not reported by the New York City Campaign Finance Board by day’s end.It was not clear if the mayor’s campaign filed disclosures at or past the deadline, or not at all. Vito Pitta, a compliance lawyer for the Adams campaign, did not respond to requests for comment.As for Mr. Adams’s Democratic rivals, Brad Lander, the city comptroller, claimed bragging rights by bringing his fund-raising total to just under a million dollars for his mayoral campaign so far. It was enough to potentially qualify him to receive $3.5 million in taxpayer money under the city’s matching funds program, which awards candidates $8 for every dollar up to the first $250 donated by a city resident.Mr. Lander said he was in a “strong position” to qualify for the maximum amount allowed in matching funds, enabling him to hit the $7.93 million spending cap for a primary or special election, should Mr. Adams resign or be forced out. Mr. Lander also raised the most money in the three-month reporting period that ended Oct. 7, collecting just over $315,000.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Treasurer for Little-Known Brooklyn Candidate Is Charged in Fraud Scheme

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      Erlene King sent thousands of dollars to associates and told them to distribute the funds to others who would then donate to the campaign she worked for, federal prosecutors said.The treasurer of an ill-fated 2021 campaign for Brooklyn borough president was charged Wednesday with organizing a fraudulent donation scheme in an attempt to access at least $400,000 in public matching funds.Federal prosecutors said the treasurer, Erlene King, 71, had sent thousands of dollars to associates over roughly two and a half years in an effort to skirt campaign finance rules and boost the campaign of Anthony Jones, who would go on to lose the election after receiving roughly 3 percent of the vote. Mr. Jones has not been accused of wrongdoing.Ms. King pleaded not guilty to wire fraud in federal court on Wednesday after she opted to waive her right to have the charges presented to a grand jury.A lawyer representing Ms. King, John S. Wallenstein, said that he and his client were “discussing potential resolutions” with prosecutors. If found guilty, Ms. King could face up to 20 years in prison.New York City’s public campaign financing program provides funds for campaigns that meet certain fund-raising thresholds. During the 2021 campaign for Brooklyn borough president, the Campaign Finance Board offered to pay campaigns up to $8 for every $1 raised, but only if a campaign first received donations from a minimum number of contributors and raised a total of $50,000 in eligible contributions on its own.In an effort to meet that threshold, Ms. King organized at least $25,000 in fraudulent contributions to Mr. Jones’s campaign, according to prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York. Donations that do not originate with the person whose name appears on fund-raising records are often called “straw” donations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Donald Trump Cut Ties to Some Online Fund-Raisers

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      Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign cut ties late last week with a number of digital firms that had been fund-raising for the campaign and slashed the commission that the remaining vendors can retain by 10 percentage points, according to four people briefed on the changes.The moves come as Mr. Trump has fallen far behind Vice President Kamala Harris in the cash race, and they suggest that the Republican operation is seeking to narrow its donor outreach in the final weeks of the campaign to those contributors who are most immediately profitable.Mr. Trump’s campaign told the digital fund-raising companies that were being retained that their share of incoming donations was being reduced to 59 percent of new donations solicited. At least some of the firms had previously gotten as much as 70 percent of the first donation they recruited to the campaign, said the four people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, declined to answer specific questions about the changes. “President Trump is a fund-raising machine who has built the most robust list of grass-roots donors ever in politics which will fuel his return to the White House,” she said.Under the new arrangement, the Republican firm that has overseen Mr. Trump’s online fund-raising for much of the year, Launchpad, had been set to receive 1 percent of every new donation given, according to two people briefed on the matter.But at least some senior campaign officials had been unaware of that plan. After The New York Times inquired about it, the two people said that the 1 percent payment for Launchpad would not be put into place.Launchpad declined to comment.The world of digital donor list brokering and fund-raising is obscure and lucrative.The outside fund-raising firms that the Trump campaign had been working with own independent lists of regular Republican contributors. The firms then solicit those people to ask them to contribute to Mr. Trump. In exchange, the firms received a significant cut of the first donation given.This process of prospecting for new donors can be profitable for a candidate because it costs nothing and nets some money. Perhaps most important, the contact information for the new donors is given to the campaign, which can solicit them repeatedly.Mr. Trump already has amassed, by far, the largest list of small donors in Republican politics. Two people said that one reason for the change was that roughly 86 percent of the donations that outside firms were collecting were already part of the Trump database of emails.Mr. Trump’s donor list is seen as among his most valuable campaign assets, constructed over nearly a decade in politics.Maggie Haberman More

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      Harris Enters Homestretch With a Far Bigger, Costlier Campaign Than Trump

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      Vice President Kamala Harris entered the homestretch of the general election building a campaign that was bigger than former President Donald J. Trump’s in nearly every discernible category.She is raising more money than Mr. Trump, with her campaign collecting more than four times as much as his did in August.She is spending far more money than he is — nearly three times more in August.And she is holding on to more money than Mr. Trump, ending the month with $100 million more in the bank than him.The vast discrepancies between the two operations were laid bare in new filings with the Federal Election Commission on Friday night from the candidates’ two main campaign committees, Harris for President and Donald J. Trump for President Inc. The reports detailed their August fund-raising, costs and cash-on-hand as of Aug. 30, along with similar figures from their national party committees.The candidates had already announced their top-line figures for the month of August: Ms. Harris’s campaign, when combined with allied party committees, had almost tripled Mr. Trump in fund-raising, collecting $361 million for all of her committees while Mr. Trump’s campaign and associated committees took in just $130 million for his. All told, including some campaign committees that don’t file reports until next month, Mr. Trump entered September facing a $110 million cash deficit against Ms. Harris, according to their self-disclosed numbers.On the surface, the campaigns built by Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are similar. They both spend much of their money on advertising, and other big costs include private planes, payroll, postage and mail. But the new reports reveal how dissimilar the campaigns are in terms of scale.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More