Campaign Finance

Subterms

    More stories

    • 75 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Naked Emperors and Crypto Campaign Cash

      by

      Once upon a time there was an emperor who loved being fashion-forward. So he was receptive to some fast-talking tailors who promised to make him a suit out of new, high-technology fabric — a suit so comfortable that it would feel as if he were wearing nothing at all. “Fortune favors the brave,” they told him.Of course, the reason the suit was so comfortable was that it didn’t exist; the emperor was walking around naked. But the members of Congress who made up his retinue didn’t dare tell him. For they knew that the tailors deceiving the emperor controlled lavishly funded super PACs that would spend large sums to destroy the career of anyone revealing their scam.OK, I changed the story a bit. But it’s one way to understand the remarkably large role the crypto industry is playing in campaign finance this year.Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, was introduced 15 years ago and was promoted as a replacement for old-fashioned money. But it has yet to find significant uses that don’t involve some sort of criminal activity. The crypto industry itself has been racked by theft and scams.But while crypto has thus far been largely unable to find legitimate applications for its products, it has been spectacularly successful at marketing its offerings. Cryptocurrencies, which are traded for other crypto assets but otherwise mainly seem suited for things like money laundering and extortion, are currently worth around $2 trillion.And in this election cycle the crypto industry has become a huge player in campaign finance. I mean huge: Crypto, which isn’t a big industry in terms of employment or output (even if you posit, for the sake of argument, that what it produces is actually worth something), accounts for almost half of corporate spending on political action committees this cycle.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

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Harris Campaign Says It Raised $82 Million During Convention Week

      by

      Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign said on Sunday that it raised $82 million during the Democratic National Convention last week, the latest spurt of donor enthusiasm around a presidential bid that, according to the campaign, has now raised $540 million in the last month.National party conventions are typically big-money moments for presidential candidates, offering nominees four days of lightly mediated exposure to a broad, if partisan audience. Ms. Harris has been on a historic fund-raising tear ever since President Biden announced on July 21 that he would no longer seek the Democratic nomination. The party convention, which took place from Monday to Thursday in Chicago, was full of messaging encouraging big and small donors alike to give to Ms. Harris’s campaign.After the vice president’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination on Thursday night, the Harris campaign saw its “best fund-raising hour since launch day,” the campaign’s chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, wrote in a memo on Sunday, although she did not provide a specific amount. The $82 million total includes contributions to allied fund-raising committees with the state and national parties.The memo did not give day-by-day totals, but ActBlue, which processes online donations for many progressive causes, including Ms. Harris’s bid, reported that its platform raised $13 million on Monday, $16.5 million on Tuesday, $23 million on Wednesday and almost $37 million on Thursday.Ms. Harris’s Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, did not release similar fund-raising numbers after his party’s convention in Milwaukee last month. While he was competitive with Mr. Biden in political fund-raising through 2024, Ms. Harris opened a $50 million cash-on-hand advantage at the beginning of August, after she had ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket.The $82 million raised during the four days of the Democratic convention is roughly on par with the $81 million the Harris campaign said it raised in the first 24 hours after Mr. Biden’s decision to drop out. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      George Santos Is Expected to Plead Guilty, People Close to Case Say

      by

      Mr. Santos could change his mind, but witnesses in his campaign fraud case were told by federal prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty on Monday.George Santos, the former Republican congressman from New York undone by a mind-bending array of biographical lies and moneymaking schemes, has told prosecutors that he intends to plead guilty and avoid a federal trial that was expected to begin next month, according to two lawyers involved in the case and two other people with knowledge of the matter.The plea, which is expected to occur on Monday in Federal District Court in Central Islip, N.Y., would spare Mr. Santos from a trial that almost certainly would have been a colorful spectacle. Mr. Santos, whose trial on 23 felony charges was scheduled to begin on Sept. 9, could still change his mind. But this week, two lawyers representing multiple witnesses in the case were told by federal prosecutors that Mr. Santos had decided to plead guilty.Two others with knowledge of the plans confirmed that he intends to plead guilty on Monday; one of the people said Mr. Santos is expected to give a statement in court acknowledging his crimes. The terms of his expected guilty plea and what sentence he might face were not clear.Lies, Charges and Questions Left in the George Santos ScandalGeorge Santos, who was expelled from Congress in 2023, has told so many stories they can be hard to keep straight. We cataloged them, including major questions about his personal finances and his campaign fund-raising and spending.Public court records show that an in-person hearing has been scheduled for Monday afternoon at the request of prosecutors and Mr. Santos’s lawyers. The records did not explain the purpose of the hearing. Mr. Santos and one of his lawyers, Joseph Murray, did not respond to requests for comment.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

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Harris Campaign Reserves $370 Million for Swing-State Fall Ad Blitz

      by

      $200 million of that will be spent to reach voters on their phones and other devices, as Kamala Harris’s aides race to define her while drawing a contrast with Donald Trump.Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign announced on Saturday that it was reserving $370 million in advertising to begin after Labor Day and run through the November election, including $200 million on digital ads.The Harris campaign said it believed this was the largest digital ad reservation ever in American politics, reflecting the need to reach voters on their phones and other devices. Just $170 million is being reserved so far on television, as traditional television audiences continue to fragment and shrink.“This is a modern campaign in 2024 and we’re not just stuck in the times of old, where 80 percent of the budget has to be on television,” Quentin Fulks, Ms. Harris’s principal deputy campaign manager, said in an interview.The Harris campaign did not say how much it would spend in each state. But it said its purchases of television advertising would total twice what President Biden’s 2020 campaign spent in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, four times what he spent in Georgia and six times what he spent in Nevada, the least populous of the battleground states.The Harris campaign is advertising now in seven swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — as part of a $150 million summer ad blitz. Mr. Fulks said advertising would continue in all of those states as well as nationally.For now, Mr. Fulks said the campaign was focused on “aggressively defining” Ms. Harris in her early weeks as a presidential candidate.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

    • 63 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      The Democratic Party’s Money Machine

      by

      The Democratic National Committee is again raising huge sums from donors, but the rise of super PACs has forced it to adapt to a new era of big-money influence.Vice President Kamala Harris heads to next week’s Democratic National Convention on the back of a wave of enthusiasm.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesA political piggy bank The Democratic National Convention starts on Monday in Chicago, capping an extraordinary few weeks since Vice President Kamala Harris became the party’s presidential candidate.In that time, she has generated momentum and enthusiasm among voters. Some longtime political observers, like the Republican pollster Frank Luntz, are calling it unprecedented.Just one indicator: Last month, Harris’s campaign said it had raised $310 million, including $200 million in the seven days after President Biden dropped out.As Democrats gather in the United Center, one focus will be on the Democratic National Committee, the organizational backbone that coordinates the party’s electoral strategy, management and convention. Much of that involves money, and the committee raises millions that it disburses to fight in federal and state elections.DealBook dug into the numbers and spoke to experts to understand where the committee fits into the wider world of campaign finance and to show how its role has evolved.The first Democratic Party convention was in 1832. Sixteen years later, at their convention in Baltimore, party leaders established the Democratic National Committee. In 1856, the Republicans did the same, paving the way for the Republican-Democratic juggernaut that has dominated American politics ever since.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

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Harris Appeals to Tech Leaders in a Return to San Francisco

      by

      A Sunday fund-raiser offered Vice President Kamala Harris a chance to turn the page on a sometimes frosty relationship between President Biden and Silicon Valley.Joe Biden who?Vice President Kamala Harris, whose political career was born in San Francisco two decades ago, on Sunday returned to the city for the first time since clinching the Democratic presidential nomination, hoping to reset relations with a tech community that has soured some on President Biden.It was a turning of the page and a homecoming all at once. Ms. Harris’s late-morning event raised $13 million from the region’s white-collar establishment that counts her as their own.But her trip was as much a rally as a fund-raiser, with about 700 people piling into the Grand Ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill. On one of this city’s quintessentially brisk, foggy August mornings, these wealthy givers waited in a queue that snaked up the hill, an indignity that would be unheard-of at a typical fund-raiser at a cozy private home in Woodside or Menlo Park. (Some donors with a connection or two found a way, as they do, to skip the line.)As is often the case in the highly choreographed world of presidential fund-raising, where egos must be treated tenderly, there was a series of receptions before the fund-raiser (with blue, pink and green wristbands) that clearly delineated the pecking order of big donors and their influence. Ms. Harris dropped in on each one, in descending order of price and intimacy, as donors enjoyed peach mimosas and shrimp cocktails before her remarks in the grand ballroom.“This is a room full of dear, dear, dear friends,” she said, standing before a giant “Harris Walz” sign and four flags: two American and two California.Mr. Biden has struggled for financial support from the Bay Area dating to his 2020 presidential campaign, when his list of fund-raisers was heavy on Obama-era ambassadors but light on the billionaire leaders of the tech industry.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

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Tech Investors Are the Latest to Zoom for Harris

      by

      There was a Zoom call for cat ladies. Ones for Deadheads, Black women, white women, and then, of course, for the white dudes.And now, at long last, there was one for the venture capitalists.The latest affinity group to organize behind Kamala Harris on Wednesday represented the lowly millionaire and billionaire investors of Silicon Valley. Relative to the massive Zoom telethons that other groups had been hosting for Ms. Harris over the last two weeks, the “VCs for Kamala” call was a small group of around 600 people. But they represented some of the country’s most notable donors who have outsize influence in technology and Democratic politics.A week after publishing an open letter in support of Kamala Harris signed by more than 700 influential tech investors, a group of key backers took to Zoom to rally their peers in a way only they could: with PowerPoint presentations, startup aphorisms and a desire to make the Harris funding round “oversubscribed.” Their logo? Designed by AI, naturally.Ms. Harris, who grew up in Bay Area politics and has stronger personal relationships with tech executives and investors than did President Biden, has ushered in an enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket not seen in years. She is set to return to San Francisco for a fund-raiser this weekend, and the event is already sold out at all but the most expensive price points..On the call, Reid Hoffman, a major donor to President Biden and Ms. Harris, made the business case for supporting Ms. Harris over former President Donald J. Trump. “No chaos” was far better for business, he said. Other chief executives of major companies he has spoken to agreed, he added.Ron Conway, a billionaire investor and Silicon Valley Democratic leader, pledged on the call to match $50,000 in donations to the Harris effort. In total, the group received pledges of roughly $135,000 for the Harris campaign.John Corrigan, an organizer of the call, encouraged listeners to call their relatives in swing states and talk about politicsMr. Corrigan promised the group would reconvene in September: “After Burning Man.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Harris Holds First Fund-Raiser as Democrats Rally: ‘We Are the Underdogs’

      by

      Vice President Kamala Harris warned a crowd of supporters on Saturday that former President Donald J. Trump held the advantage in their contest for the White House given the short window until Election Day.“We got a fight ahead of us, and we are the underdogs in this race, OK?” Ms. Harris said in Pittsfield, Mass., at her first fund-raiser since President Biden dropped his re-election bid six days ago. “Level set, we’re the underdogs in this race. But this is a people-powered campaign, and we have momentum.”Polls have shown the vice president catching up to Mr. Trump — welcome news for Democrats after Mr. Biden had fallen significantly behind. The Harris campaign has also shown new strength in fund-raising and in the number of new volunteers, with the election roughly three months away.Since announcing her candidacy for the Democratic nomination and receiving Mr. Biden’s endorsement, Ms. Harris has deployed a sharpened message against Mr. Trump. On Saturday, she suggested he would restrict Americans’ “most fundamental rights,” including reproductive freedoms, and called him a “bully.”“What other freedoms could be on the table for the taking?” she said during her remarks, repeating her stark warnings of the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. “It’s serious business.”She also leaned into a new Democratic attack on the former president and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, saying that some of the swipes the men had taken against her were “just plain weird.”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