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      DeSantis, With a Subtle Maneuver, Hides His Small-Dollar Donations

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      The campaign of the Florida governor, who is known to be reliant on rich donors, worked with a Republican fund-raising powerhouse to prevent the disclosure of information on small contributors.When WinRed, the company that processes nearly all online Republican campaign contributions, recently released its enormous trove of donor data for the first half of the year, donations were conspicuously absent for one presidential candidate: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.It was no technical glitch. The DeSantis campaign worked with WinRed in a way that prevented the disclosure of donor information, ensuring that the campaign’s small donors would remain anonymous, according to a person familiar with the campaign.The arrangement appears to be the first of its kind for a presidential campaign since WinRed’s founding four years ago and could presage a return to an era in which far less information on small donors is made public, at least for Republicans.Representatives for Mr. DeSantis declined to describe details of the arrangement. The person familiar with the campaign said the aim was to prevent other campaigns from poaching Mr. DeSantis’s donors.But the move has other effects, including obscuring exactly how many — or how few — online donations Mr. DeSantis has received.His dependency on larger contributors has been a source of concern for his campaign, after his first financial report last month revealed that less than 15 percent of his $20 million haul had come from donors who gave less than $200. News emerged on Tuesday that Mr. DeSantis had replaced his campaign manager as part of a broad shake-up.Matt Mackowiak, a Republican consultant based in Texas, said he was not convinced of the value of concealing small donors — “Generally, small donors don’t care about disclosure,” he said — but he also did not see much of a threat to transparency in the campaign’s arrangement.“To me, the single most important aspect of the transparent philosophical debate is: Is somebody buying influence?” Mr. Mackowiak said. “You’re not going to buy anyone with a $200 or less donation.”Until recent years, he noted, small donations were never broken out in federal campaign finance disclosures. In a sense — and to the all but certain dismay of those who push for transparency — the move by the DeSantis campaign suggests a return to a previous era when those contributions remained anonymous.WinRed was set up in 2019 as a conservative answer to ActBlue, a nonprofit group that since 2004 has served as the central platform to process online donations for Democratic candidates and causes. ActBlue has been widely credited with establishing Democratic dominance in small-dollar fund-raising, and Republicans had long been eager for their own version.Unlike ActBlue, the heart of WinRed is a for-profit company. But its political action committee, like ActBlue’s, has served as a conduit for contributions to campaigns. Donors would give to the campaign through a webpage run by WinRed, which then distributed the money to it.In the 2020 election cycle, WinRed received and forwarded over $2.2 billion in online contributions; ActBlue was a conduit for more than $4.2 billion.While political campaigns are not required to itemize contributions under $200, the PACs for WinRed and ActBlue have to provide information on every donor. Their filings offered the public the only details about campaigns’ small-dollar contributions.WinRed has fought the requirement that it disclose every donor. It is currently in litigation with the Federal Election Commission and seeks to raise the threshold to $200, arguing that the requirement is burdensome and is not in keeping with the drastic growth of small-dollar donations.A spokesman for WinRed did not respond to requests for comment.WinRed recently started offering “merchant” accounts, in which the company acts not as a conduit, but as a typical payment processor. Mr. DeSantis’s campaign chose this option, the person familiar with the campaign said, cutting WinRed’s PAC and its disclosure requirements out of the picture.It appears to be the first time a presidential campaign has opted for this arrangement. The former chief executive of WinRed, Carl Sceusa, is currently the chief financial and chief technology officer of the DeSantis campaign.The difference in disclosure is vast.WinRed’s filing last week showed that Mr. Trump’s main fund-raising committee processed 1,328,930 donations in the first six months of the year. It showed nothing about Mr. DeSantis, whose campaign reported only 15,462 donations above $200 on his campaign’s Federal Election Commission filing. There was no information about the donors who gave less than $200. His campaign has said he has topped the 40,000 donors needed to make the first debate stage, but only a fraction of them are now disclosed.“Using the payment processor model allows them to not have to itemize those donors,” said Adav Noti, senior vice president and legal director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit campaign ethics group. “That’s a business question, not a legal question.”The vendor arrangement raises some legal questions, Mr. Noti said: First, whether WinRed’s merchant arm is, itself, a de facto political group, which would have to register as a political action committee.“F.E.C. rules are pretty clear that payment processors can’t be partisan,” Mr. Noti said.The strategy may be most notable for what it could suggest to competitors about Mr. DeSantis’s campaign.“To the extent that unitemized contributions could tell you something about a candidate that might be valuable, it’s that they are regional, in one place,” Mr. Mackowiak, the strategist, said. “The only thing I can think of is that their small donor base may be primarily Florida-based, and they didn’t want to appear like a regional candidate.” More

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      Pro-Haley Group Plans $13 Million Ad Push in Iowa and New Hampshire

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      Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, has been struggling to gain traction in a crowded Republican field dominated by Donald Trump.A super PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign said on Tuesday that it had reserved more than $13 million in television and digital ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting in August. The outlay is the first major advertising push in support of Ms. Haley since she became the first Republican to challenge former President Donald J. Trump this year.The group, SFA Fund Inc., is pouring $7 million into ads in Iowa and $6.2 million into ads in New Hampshire that will run over the next nine weeks. The first television ad features Ms. Haley, 51, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, talking tough on China at a political rally, arguing that the country’s leaders “want to cover the world in communist tyranny.”A voice-over says, “Nikki Haley: tough as nails, smart as a whip, unafraid to speak the truth.”Polls show Ms. Haley stuck in the single digits in a primary race that has been dominated by Mr. Trump.The first New York Times/Siena College poll of the 2024 campaign showed Mr. Trump with the support of 54 percent of likely Republican primary voters, while Ms. Haley trailed far behind with just 3 percent, the same level of support as former Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.Ms. Haley has until now relied on free television and press coverage that has come from her brisk clip of events and appearances in Iowa and New Hampshire, where she has spent more time campaigning than most of her rivals.In a memo published this month, Mark Harris, SFA Fund’s lead strategist, said the group was gearing up to begin “an aggressive voter contact campaign” as Ms. Haley enters the next phase of the race. “Nikki Haley understands that China’s growing influence poses a monumental threat to the United States,” Mr. Harris said in a statement announcing the ads.In Iowa, Republican campaigns have spent $31.8 million so far this year, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. The $7 million campaign would make SFA Fund the second-largest spender in the state, behind only Mr. Scott’s Trust in the Mission PAC, or TIM PAC, which has spent more than $15.3 million. Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has spent the next-highest amount, with $3.4 million in ads.Spending in New Hampshire has totaled only $3.4 million. TIM PAC has been the largest spender there, too, having invested $1.1 million in ads.Ms. Haley raised $7.3 million through her presidential campaign and affiliated committees from April through June, a modest sum that nevertheless revealed her robust appeal to small donors. SFA Fund had $17 million in cash on hand as of the end of June. More

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      Trump Team Creates Legal-Defense Fund to Cover His Allies’ Bills

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      With investigations and legal fees piling up, a fund is planned to help witnesses and defendants. The former president’s legal bills are not expected to be included, however.Former President Donald J. Trump’s team is creating a legal-defense fund to handle some of the crush of legal bills stemming from the investigations and criminal indictments involving him and a number of employees and associates, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.The fund, which is expected to be called the Patriot Legal Defense Fund Inc., will be led by Michael Glassner, a longtime Trump political adviser, according to the people familiar with the planning, who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. Another Trump aide who worked at the Trump Organization and then in Mr. Trump’s administration, Lynne Patton, will also be involved, the people said.It is unclear how broad a group of people the legal-defense fund will cover, but one person said it was not expected to cover Mr. Trump’s own legal bills. In recent months Mr. Trump’s political action committee has paid legal bills for him and several witnesses, spending over $40 million on lawyers in the first half of 2023.But a wide swath of people have become entangled in the various Trump-related criminal investigations, both as witnesses — of which there are many who work for Mr. Trump personally or did in the White House — as well as defendants.A spokesman for Mr. Trump, Steven Cheung, said that the Justice Department had “targeted innocent Americans associated with President Trump,” and that “to combat these heinous actions” and “protect these innocent people from financial ruin and prevent their lives from being completely destroyed, a new legal defense fund will help pay for their legal fees to ensure they have representation against unlawful harassment.”Mr. Trump’s PAC, Save America, has been a focus of one of the investigations by the special counsel Jack Smith, who has had at least two grand juries looking at Mr. Trump and his allies and advisers. Mr. Smith’s team has questioned why some lawyers for specific witnesses are being paid, as well as whether aides to Mr. Trump and Republicans knew Mr. Trump had lost the election but continued to raise money off his debunked claims.The creation of the legal-defense fund could ease some of the financial pressure on Save America, which was severe enough that it requested a refund of the $60 million it had transferred to a pro-Trump super PAC late last year. Michael Glassner, a longtime Trump political adviser, will lead what is expected to be called the Patriot Legal Defense Fund Inc.Andrew Harnik/Associated PressMr. Trump now has two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, in the federal investigation into his retention of reams of presidential material and classified documents after he left office. Both men work for Mr. Trump; Mr. Nauta works for the Trump campaign, and Mr. De Oliveira is the property manager at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club.Last month, Mr. Trump appeared at a fund-raiser at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., for a group that assists those arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot and their families. “I’m going to make a contribution,” Mr. Trump told them, according to a video of his remarks. That group’s name, the Patriot Freedom Project, echoes the new name of Mr. Trump’s legal fund.Mr. Trump had long resisted such an entity. For years, he told people that only guilty people have legal-defense funds.Mr. Trump, a wealthy businessman, has been using money parked in Save America to pay legal bills for himself and a number of witnesses in the four criminal investigations into his actions in and out of office. Save America was created to house the more than $100 million that Mr. Trump raised shortly after the November 2020 election, as he claimed he needed his supporters’ help to combat widespread voter fraud.No such widespread fraud was ever proved, but Mr. Trump had tens of millions of dollars at his disposal. He cannot spend the money directly on his 2024 presidential candidacy, but has been using it for legal bills. Last year, he made the $60 million transfer to the super PAC that is backing him, well before the refund request was made.In 2021 and 2022, Save America paid for Mr. Trump’s political operation while he was out of office and not an official candidate, paying for staff members and rallies. It also picked up $16 million in legal fees. Mr. Trump’s rivals have been using the Save America legal payments as an attack on him. And he appears to have recognized it as a potential weak point: On Saturday evening, at a rally in Erie, Pa., he said he would put whatever money he needs to put into his campaign, if it comes to that. More

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      DeSantis Reboots Struggling 2024 Campaign With Iowa Bus Tour

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      On a bus tour in Iowa to start off a campaign reset, Ron DeSantis suggested that his top advisers had not followed his strategy.Gov. Ron DeSantis’s reboot of his struggling presidential campaign began in the spartan basement of a hotel in a rural Iowa town.No spacious event hall, as at previous campaign stops. No legion of security guards ushering crowds of voters through metal detectors. No lineup of local luminaries giving elaborate introductions. Even the audio equipment was basic, generating noisy feedback at the beginning of Mr. DeSantis’s remarks to a crowd of about 65 people and cutting out occasionally throughout the opening speech of his bus tour on Thursday.Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, has tried to downplay his campaign troubles — a fund-raising shortfall and staff layoffs — saying he was switching gears to focus on the early nominating states and suggesting that his top advisers had not followed his strategy.“At the end of the day, as an executive, you have a commander’s intent,” he said after his speech in a rare session with reporters. “If that commander’s intent is not followed, then you have to make sure it’s followed. So that’s what we’re doing.”But some things didn’t appear to change much, even as his campaign has promised a “reset.”Mr. DeSantis began his speech with his stalwart opening line: “We have a very simple task ahead of us as Americans, and that is to send Joe Biden back to his basement in Delaware,” he said without irony from the hotel’s crowded basement, aptly called the Elbow Room.And while Mr. DeSantis’s stump speech in Chariton, Iowa, was shorter and more focused on what his priorities would be as president (the economy, immigration, challenging the federal government bureaucracy), he barely talked about the state or the town he was in.In response to its struggles, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign has said it will change its approach by spending less, presenting itself as an “underdog” against the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, and sharpening its message, according to talking points distributed to supporters. The bus tour on Thursday through several counties south of Des Moines was Mr. DeSantis’s first appearance in an early voting state since the layoffs.By many measures, his presidential bid appears to be in crisis. His fund-raising did not meet internal expectations for the second quarter. He still trails Mr. Trump in national polls by more than 30 percentage points. And in the most alarming sign of all, his campaign confirmed this week that it had laid off more than a third of its staff just months after joining the race. With all of this bad news, the campaign has shifted to a more guerrilla-style approach.He made several more stops in Iowa on Thursday, including at a county fair, and he held a town hall at a distillery in the evening.By 4 p.m. Central, Mr. DeSantis had taken questions from the press not once but twice — once after the Chariton event and again after a tour of a small meat-processing facility in Lamoni, Iowa — a rare occurrence for a candidate who prefers to have more control over his media appearances. The interactions are a sign that, as part of his reboot, Mr. DeSantis plans to engage more with the press, potentially offering him greater exposure to voters.Mr. DeSantis signed autographs for supporters at the Wayne County fairgrounds in Corydon, Iowa.Christopher Smith for The New York TimesMr. DeSantis’s jam-packed day took him to four rural Iowa counties, with stops at a county fairground, a Casey’s gas station where he bought a crispy chicken sandwich and a Sunkist, and a small hotel where staff said he was scheduled to take a break and enjoy some “executive time,” ahead of his evening town hall.The bus tour on Thursday was organized by Never Back Down, the main super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis. As the governor’s campaign cuts costs, the super PAC, which has a war chest of $130 million, has signaled that it may take over more responsibilities traditionally reserved for campaigns, like organizing events.While groups like Never Back Down are supposed to be independent of political campaigns, the Federal Election Commission has ruled that candidates are generally allowed to appear at their events. Mr. DeSantis was billed as a special guest on the bus tour.Dale Rumple, 84, said at the Chariton event that he was still leaning toward supporting Mr. DeSantis, despite the apparent turmoil in his campaign.“You’ve got to be anti-woke, anti-transgender, anti-gay,” said Mr. Rumple, who is retired and described himself as an evangelical Christian. “DeSantis doesn’t like any of that stuff.”Other voters, including Kathy Harvey of Chariton, had not heard the news about the layoffs.Ms. Harvey, 66, said she was grateful that Mr. DeSantis had taken the time to visit her town of roughly 4,000 people.“We’re not real significant,” she said. “But yet he’s willing to reach out.”Mr. DeSantis, who has a reputation for appearing aloof, gamely engaged in small talk with Iowans during the day.“You look good, man,” he said to Ralph Alshouse, a World War II veteran in his 90s at the county fairgrounds in Corydon, Iowa. “I would not have guessed World War II.”But his attempts didn’t always seem to land, as when he told a young girl enjoying an Icee, “That’s probably a lot of sugar, huh?” before shaking hands with another small child and greeting her with a surprisingly formal “Good to see you.”And then, “4-H, Wayne County,” a bemused Mr. DeSantis said to himself before moving on.At his evening town hall, Mr. DeSantis stuck to a similar, if somewhat meandering, script that at points ventured into head-scratching territory, such as a disquisition on quantitative easing.But during the question-and-answer session, a voter, Scott McLin, asked Mr. DeSantis to provide two or three bullet points about what he would do as president to prevent the nation from enacting lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates in a future pandemic. Mr. DeSantis responded that he would hold leaders like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci accountable for their “wrongheaded policies” and eliminate the “revolving door” between the Food and Drug Administration and big pharmaceutical companies.The answer — which also touched on the “lab leak” theory of Covid, as well as Mr. DeSantis’s questions about the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines, and a discussion of how the media had attacked him during the pandemic — may not have been particularly succinct, but it was effective.Mr. McLin, 56, of Osceola, Iowa, said that he had been leaning toward supporting Mr. DeSantis but that the governor’s answer had moved him firmly into Mr. DeSantis’s camp.“It’s a done deal,” Mr. McLin said in an interview outside the distillery. “I really believe that was a huge mistake by Donald Trump, how he handled the pandemic.” More

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      DeSantis’s Campaign Reboot Faces Donor Skepticism and Deepening Divisions

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      As the Florida governor reboots in Iowa, tensions still plague the highest levels of his operation and a supportive super PAC.On the day his presidential campaign said it had laid off more than a third of its staff to address worries about unsustainable spending, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida began his morning by boarding a private jet to Chattanooga, Tenn.The choice was a routine one — Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, haven’t regularly flown commercial for years — but also symbolic to close observers of his struggling presidential campaign. As Mr. DeSantis promises a reset, setting out on Thursday on a bus tour in Iowa to show off a leaner, hungrier operation, several donors and allies remained skeptical about whether the governor could right the ship.Their bleak outlook reflects a deep mistrust plaguing the highest levels of the DeSantis campaign, as well as its supporters and the well-funded super PAC, Never Back Down, bolstering his presidential ambitions.Publicly, the parties are projecting a stoic sunniness about Mr. DeSantis, even as he has sunk dangerously close to third place in some recent polls. They have said they are moving into an “insurgent” phase in which the candidate will be everywhere — on national and local media, and especially in Iowa.But privately, the situation is starkly different.Major Republican donors, including the hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin, have remained on the sidelines because they are disappointed in his performance and his campaign, according to two people familiar with their thinking.DeSantis donors have specifically raised concerns about the campaign’s finances, which appear both troubling and persistently opaque. Some prominent vendors did not show up on the first Federal Election Commission report, raising questions about how much of the spending has been deferred and whether the campaign’s total reported cash on hand for the primary — $9.2 million — was even close to accurate.The campaign’s concerning financial situation prompted an all-hands review of the budget in recent weeks. This review extended to James Uthmeier, the chief of staff in the governor’s office and a longtime trusted aide. Mr. Uthmeier recently received a personal briefing on the campaign’s finances from an official, Ethan Eilon, with the blessing of campaign manager Generra Peck, and then delivered an assessment to the governor, according to two people briefed on the conversations.Asked about the briefing, Mr. Uthmeier responded by email to express strong confidence in Ms. Peck, who he said had “welcomed” him to help the campaign as a volunteer. He added that Mr. DeSantis “continues to receive support from tens of thousands” of donors and that he has “full confidence” in Mr. DeSantis’s “vision to beat Joe Biden and restore sanity.”In an attempt to assuage donors’ anxieties, Mr. DeSantis’s allies have promised a campaign pivot that includes a more open press strategy, humbler travel conditions and smaller events. Advisers say the governor will be promoting his vision for a “Great American Comeback” — a phrase they hope will also apply to his spiraling campaign. Mr. DeSantis, a big-state governor with little love for glad-handing, will have to prove he is up for the challenges.On Thursday, Mr. DeSantis began a two-day bus tour across central Iowa that is being organized almost entirely by the super PAC, Never Back Down. Announcements for the three meet-and-greet stops scheduled describe Mr. DeSantis as the “special guest.”In talking points provided to donors on the day of the layoffs, the campaign described the operation as “leaning into the reset.”“We will embrace being the underdog and use the media’s ongoing narrative about the campaign to fuel momentum on the ground with voters,” said the guidance.On Tuesday, the campaign confirmed it had fired 38 campaign officials this month in an attempt to shrink its payroll. It remains unclear how many of those are leaving the DeSantis orbit. Some have discussed joining nonprofit groups with close ties to Mr. DeSantis’s political operation, including one linked to Phil Cox, who was an adviser on the governor’s 2022 campaign.Among the known DeSantis vendors that did not show up on his first campaign filing are some companies — Ascent Media and Public Opinion Strategies — that are part of a consultancy umbrella group called GP3, in which Mr. Cox is a key financial partner. Mr. Cox, who has worked closely with some of the 2024 campaign leadership in the past and also spent a brief stint advising the super PAC, is now back informally involved with the DeSantis campaign and raising money.But Mr. DeSantis himself has yet to adopt his campaign’s newfound frugality. On Tuesday, he flew multiple trips on private planes to fund-raisers around Tennessee. The private flights help explain part of how the campaign has burned through cash in its first six weeks. His campaign’s first report showed that he had spent $179,000 in chartered plane costs, as well as $483,000 to a limited liability company for “travel.”On Thursday outside a small meat-processing facility in Lamoni, Iowa, Mr. DeSantis briefly addressed his use of private planes in response to a question from a reporter.“We do things based on R.O.I. and that’s on everything you do,” Mr. DeSantis said, using the acronym for “return on investment,” a business term. “If it’s not a good R.O.I., then we try something else.” He did not answer later when asked what return he was getting on flying private instead of commercial, as other candidates in the race are doing.Some of Mr. DeSantis’s rivals have been eager to point out their cost-saving measures. On Wednesday, Nikki Haley tweeted a photo with her flight attendant under the hashtag #WeFlyCommercial.What’s more, Mr. DeSantis and other parts of his operation showed little sign of a message shift.In an interview with the radio host Clay Travis that aired Wednesday, Mr. DeSantis said that he would consider picking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine candidate running as a Democrat, to work at the F.D.A. or the C.D.C. The stunning remark prompted criticism from some prominent conservative writers, including at The National Review, where staff had once sounded bullish on a DeSantis candidacy.Later in the day, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign aide Christina Pushaw, who is known for fighting with reporters online, attacked the popular Republican Florida Representative Byron Donalds, who is Black, for criticizing his state’s new required teachings on slavery. By night’s end, the feud over Mr. Donalds devolved to the point where another DeSantis aide, Jeremy Redfern, got into a fight with a random Twitter user and posted her photo prominently in a tweet.At a donor retreat over the weekend — at a luxury ski resort in Park City, Utah, hired out for $87,000 — donors and allies, including Representative Chip Roy of Texas, had tough conversations with both the governor and his wife, a close adviser, about the structure and management of the campaign, according to two people who attended the retreat.Asked whether the congressman voiced concerns to Mr. DeSantis, Mr. Roy issued a statement saying only, “It’s not the campaign that needs to change; it’s the direction of our country. Governor DeSantis and his whole team are committed to doing just that.” His spokesman did not respond to a follow-up question.Much of the rancor stems from the strained but increasingly intertwined relationship between Mr. DeSantis’s campaign and his super PAC. Having raised $130 million, the super PAC has vastly more money than the campaign and has taken over basic campaign functions, including its voter contact operation — a highly unusual extent of involvement.The two entities — essentially a traditional campaign and a shadow one — are prohibited from coordinating strategy in private, but the campaign has aired its differences through a leaked memo. Ms. Peck, the campaign manager who has a close relationship with the governor and his wife, recently sent a memo to donors that appeared to call into question the super PAC’s decision to save money by staying off the airwaves in New Hampshire. The super PAC has since reserved airtime in the state, with advertising set to begin next week.Ms. Peck also has harshly criticized Never Back Down in private, according to a person with direct knowledge of her remarks.In response to questions about the distrust across the DeSantis orbit, the campaign’s communications director, Andrew Romeo, dismissed “palace intrigue.”“Our campaign is laser-focused on electing Ron DeSantis president, and we are nothing but grateful for groups like Never Back Down that are also working to support this mission,” he said.Erin Perrine, a spokeswoman for Never Back Down, declined to comment.On Tuesday night, only hours after the announcement of the layoffs, Mr. DeSantis returned to Tallahassee on a private plane.Back at his campaign headquarters, some staff members who hadn’t been fired brought in cases of beer to rally spirits after yet another dispiriting day. One staffer sarcastically described the evening to a friend as “the survivors party.”Nicholas Nehamas More

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      Fundraising Deadline for 2024 Presidential Campaigns Arrives: What to Watch

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      Which presidential and Senate candidates are swimming in cash? Which ones are growing desperate? That and more will become clearer on Saturday, when campaigns must file their latest federal reports.The financial landscape of the 2024 presidential race — the contest’s haves and have-nots, their momentum and desperation — will come into sharper focus on Saturday, the deadline for campaigns to file their latest reports to the Federal Election Commission.The filings, which detail fund-raising and spending from April 1 through June, will show which campaigns brought in the most hard dollars, or money raised under federal limits that is used to pay for staff, travel, events and advertising. Senate campaigns must also file by the end of Saturday, which means an early glimpse at incumbents’ fund-raising in potentially vulnerable seats.Crucially, the records will reveal which candidates are struggling to draw donor interest. For example, former Vice President Mike Pence raised just $1.2 million, two aides said on Friday, a strikingly low figure that could signal a difficult road ahead.The reports will also give a sense of small-dollar support, and which donors are maxing out their contributions to which candidates. And they will show how campaigns are spending their money, which ones have plenty of cash on hand and which ones are in danger of running dry.“The F.E.C. reports are the M.R.I. scan of a campaign,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist. “It’s the next-best thing to breaking into the headquarters and checking the files.”But the picture will not be complete. For one thing, super PACs, which can raise unlimited money and play an outsize role in supporting presidential candidates, do not have to file reports on their fund-raising and spending until the end of the month.The total number of donors to each campaign will not be provided in the filings, either. That figure is a vital measure for Republicans, because the party is requiring presidential candidates to have at least 40,000 unique donors to take part in the first primary debate on Aug. 23.Saturday will also be the first detailed look at President Biden’s war chest as he slowly ramps up his re-election campaign. His campaign said on Friday that along with the Democratic National Committee and a joint fund-raising committee, it had raised more than $72 million combined for the second quarter.In the same period in 2019, former President Donald J. Trump and his allies raised a total of $105 million — $54 million for Mr. Trump and his committees, and $51 million for the Republican National Committee. In 2011, former President Barack Obama raised $47 million for his campaign and $38 million for the Democratic National Committee.Saturday will also show the money taken in by candidates in competitive Senate races in West Virginia, Arizona, Montana, Nevada and Ohio, among other places.The filings for presidential candidates are pored over by competitors, who want to “get a sense of how they are applying their resources, which will give them a clue to strategies,” Mr. Murphy said. Candidates might look at how much their rivals are spending on ads and polling, for example.“The most important number is cash on hand, minus debt,” Mr. Murphy said. “You see how much financial firepower they actually have.”Several Republican presidential campaigns have previewed their fund-raising ahead of the release. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raised $20 million in the second quarter, his campaign said this month. But the filing on Saturday will show what percentage of that amount came from contributions below $200, which is instructive to assessing the strength of his grass-roots support.Mr. Trump raised more than $35 million in the second quarter, his campaign said. That number, however, is hard to compare with Mr. DeSantis’s because Mr. Trump has raised money through a joint fund-raising committee, which allows him to solicit contributions above the $3,300 individual limit and then transfer funds to his campaign and to his leadership political action committee.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raised $20 million in the second quarter, his campaign said this month. His filing on Saturday will show what share came from contributions below $200, a sign of grass-roots support.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesNikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, is raising money into a joint fund-raising committee, which transfers funds to her campaign and to a leadership PAC.Ms. Haley’s three committees together took in $7.3 million in contributions in the second quarter, according to filings shared with The New York Times, of which the campaign itself accounted for $4.3 million.Mr. Murphy singled out Ms. Haley as a candidate whose total earnings appeared modest, but whose cash on hand had increased from the first quarter of the year — to $9.3 million from $7.9 million across the three committees. “It shows a heartbeat,” he said. Her filings also suggest that her campaign is running a lean operation, with minimal staff, economical travel and no television ads.The Republican National Committee’s donor threshold for the first debate has shifted the calculus of many campaigns and PACs, which must focus not only on raising money but also on attracting a sufficient number of individual donors. So far, the candidates who say they have met that threshold are Mr. Trump, Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.Nikki Haley’s three committees together took in $7.3 million in contributions in the second quarter, according to filings shared with The New York Times. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Mr. Scott’s campaign said he had raised $6.1 million in the second quarter. Mr. Scott entered the race in May with a head start: He had $22 million in hard dollars in his Senate campaign. His presidential campaign said it had $21 million remaining at the end of the quarter.Another Republican candidate, the wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, has not released a preview of his fund-raising numbers, but he has said he will spend $100 million of his own money on his bid. Mr. Christie, similarly, has not released his numbers.On Friday, the campaign of Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy former software engineer, filed its quarterly report, showing that he had raised $1.5 million in contributions and that he had lent $10 million to his campaign. He had $3.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.The campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer who is challenging Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination, also filed its report Friday, showing more than $6.3 million in contributions and $4.5 million in cash on hand at the end of June.Terry Sullivan, a Republican strategist who ran Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said it would be telling which candidates broadcast their total donor numbers.Another thing to watch is the “burn rate” of each campaign, Mr. Sullivan said — what candidates are spending as a share of what they have taken in, and how much they have left in the bank.Campaign accounts are vital to candidates because, unlike PACs, the funds are controlled by the campaign. Also unlike PACs, campaigns are protected by federal law that guarantees political candidates the lowest possible rate for broadcast advertising.Mr. Sullivan said that television advertising was no longer as important as so-called earned media exposure, through events, viral moments and debates. But those often cost money, too: Even on a tight budget, candidates can easily spend a quarter-million dollars a day holding events on the trail, he said.“Nobody stops running for president because they think their ideas are no longer good enough, or they’re not qualified,” Mr. Sullivan said. “People stop running for president for one reason, and one reason only: It’s because they run out of money.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      Former Ohio Speaker Householder Faces Sentencing in Bribery Scheme

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      Larry L. Householder, former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, awaits sentencing on Thursday after being convicted of participating in a racketeering conspiracy that resulted in a bailout for two struggling nuclear power plants.It is, federal prosecutors say, perhaps the biggest public corruption scandal in Ohio’s history, a three-year conspiracy in which one of Ohio’s biggest corporations funneled some $60 million to one of the state’s most powerful politicians in exchange for a $1.3 billion bailout.And those investigators say they are only coming to the end of Act I.On Thursday, the former Republican speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry L. Householder, will be sentenced in federal court in Cincinnati for violating racketeering and bribery laws.The outlines of the charges have been known since his arrest, with four other men, three years ago: FirstEnergy Corporation, a Fortune 500 electric utility based in Akron, funneled the $60 million though various nonprofit entities. In return, Mr. Householder rammed a law through the state legislature that gave the company the bailout for two troubled nuclear power plants. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of up to 20 years.But, as described early this year in a 26-day trial, the alliance between the utility and Mr. Householder, 64, was far more than a bribery scandal. Among other things, prosecutors and experts say, it was an almost cinematic example of how the dark money that pervades both state and federal politics slithers unseen from donor to beneficiary.It is also a cautionary tale about how state legislatures — second-rung political bodies that are often run by part-time politicians, but increasingly dealing with issues of national importance — are at least as prone to manipulation by special interests as their Washington counterparts.David DeVillers, who oversaw the federal investigation as the U.S. attorney in Cincinnati until early 2021, said in an interview that the gusher of dark money was crucial to the plot and an issue well beyond Ohio.“Any time you have a supermajority, whether it’s Republicans or Democrats, and industries that are based on passing laws like marijuana or sports gambling or energy, it’s a formula for corruption,” he said.In a memorandum on sentencing last week, Mr. Householder’s lawyer, Steven L. Bradley, said that his client had not admitted wrongdoing, and that Mr. Householder genuinely believed that the legislation enacting the bailout “was an important piece of legislation, which is why he advocated and voted for it.” The blare of publicity and the ignominy of conviction, Mr. Bradley wrote, had left Mr. Householder “a broken man.” In an email, Mr. Bradley said he plans to “vigorously pursue an appeal with the hope of winning a new trial.”Mr. Householder, a onetime insurance agent from an impoverished rural county in southeast Ohio, had been House speaker from 2001 to 2004. He left his legislative seat because of term limits and faced a federal corruption investigation after leaving the post then, but was not charged.After returning to the legislature in 2016, Mr. Householder secretly spent millions in 2018 to support Republican candidates for 21 seats in the State House — more than a fifth of the 99 seats — who would back his insurgent campaign to again become House speaker. He spent more millions on a media campaign to push the nuclear bailout law to passage, and then tens of millions on a scorched-earth crusade to undermine a ballot initiative that threatened to undo it.By the time he was arrested in July 2020, Mr. Householder was soliciting secret contributions from others seeking legislative favors — and plotting to change the State Constitution’s term limits clause to extend his tenure by 16 years.At each step, a web of political action committees and dummy nonprofit organizations called 501(c)(4)s, after their place in the federal tax code, ensured that money fueling the schemes could not be traced to Mr. Householder or FirstEnergy.“The scope of the conspiracy was unprecedented,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum. “So was the damage it left in its wake, both in terms of its potential financial harm to Ohioans and its erosion of public trust.”In a wiretap disclosed during the trial, a lobbyist charged in the affair, Neil Clark, boasted to undercover F.B.I. agents about his handiwork.“I spent close to $20 million in the last eight weeks, $20 million,” he said. “FirstEnergy got $1.3 billion in subsidies, free payments.”He later added: “So what do they care about putting in $20 million a year for this thing?”FirstEnergy sought a bailout for two nuclear power plants, including this one in North Perry, Ohio.Amy Sancetta/Associated PressFirstEnergy had sought state subsidies for two nuclear power plants on the shore of Lake Erie for years when Mr. Householder returned to the State House in 2016. The company claimed that renewable energy and cheaper fuels had made both plants unprofitable.Mr. Householder left little doubt that he wanted his old job as speaker back. After his 2016 election, FirstEnergy’s chief executive at the time, Chuck Jones, invited him to fly on the company’s private jet to attend the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump.Over several days of socializing at high-end restaurants, prosecutors said, they discussed a deal: Mr. Householder needed money to regain the speaker’s post when its occupant left office in 2018. The company needed a legislative solution to its nuclear power woes.What began with a handshake became a multimillion-dollar political operation, with the money laundered through nonprofit groups allowed by the tax code to conceal donors’ names.“They can give as much or more to the (c)(4) and nobody would ever know,” the lobbyist, Mr. Clark, told Mr. Householder in another wiretapped conversation. “So you don’t have to be afraid.”Chuck Jones in 2015, when he was FirstEnergy’s president and chief executive.Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal, via Associated PressNeil Clark, a lobbyist, was also charged in the affair.Jonathan Quilter/The Columbus Dispatch, via USA Today NetworkWeeks later, Mr. Householder established a 501(c)(4) called Generation Now. Other nonprofits, both new and old, were rolled into the scheme: a PAC called Hardworking Ohioans, two new nonprofits and many more.Rivers of anonymous money — most, but not all, from FirstEnergy — began to flow. In one typical transaction, Generation Now shunted $1 million of FirstEnergy donations to the newly formed Coalition for Growth and Opportunity, whose only reported officer was a Kentucky lawyer who oversaw other nonprofits. The Coalition for Growth and Opportunity donated $1 million to its separate PAC, which spent it on media campaigns supporting Republicans friendly to Mr. Householder and opposing unfriendly ones.And so it went: At least $3 million spent in 2018 to elect Republicans backing Mr. Householder’s speaker ambitions. Nearly $17 million more in 2019 on a successful media campaign supporting House Bill 6, the legislation bailing out FirstEnergy nuclear plants.Clean energy advocates and the natural gas industry opposed the $1.3 billion measure, which propped up two unrelated coal-fired plants and solar energy projects besides the $1 billion nuclear subsidy. And when they began collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to overturn the bailout, FirstEnergy devoted another $38 million to quash that effort.The money paid for a private detective and bullies to disrupt signature gatherers, as well as a saturation advertising campaign claiming that China was “quietly invading our energy grid” with the help of opponents of the bailout.Backers considered it money well spent. When House Bill 6 became law in July 2019, Mr. Jones, the FirstEnergy chairman, sent a picture of Mount Rushmore to Samuel C. Randazzo, then the chairman of the state Public Utilities Commission. Supplanting the mountain’s four presidents were faces of the two men and executives at FirstEnergy and another utility.Below that, prosecutors said, was an all-capital-letters caption that extolled their political clout with a common sexual vulgarity.Meanwhile, Mr. Householder’s Generation Now nonprofit was already plowing new ground. In a wiretapped conversation in 2018, Mr. Householder said he was “expecting big things in (c)(4) money from payday lenders,” an industry that has lobbied federal and state officials against regulating high-interest loans to the poor.For some, the cost of exposure has been heavy.FirstEnergy fired its top executives. Later, it paid $234 million in fines to federal agencies and surrendered another $115 million in ill-gotten gains after admitting to large-scale fraud.Mr. Clark, the lobbyist, died by suicide in 2021 after publishing a book that alleged a lifetime of dirty deals in state politics.Federal prosecutors say their inquiry is continuing, although they have not said where it might lead.F.B.I. agents removing items from the home of Samuel C. Randazzo, then the Ohio Public Utilities Commission chairman, in 2020.Adam Cairns/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated PressIn what was, in effect, a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, FirstEnergy confessed that it had given Mr. Randazzo $4.3 million “to further FirstEnergy Corp.’s interests” on nuclear and other issues in 2019, weeks before Gov. Mike DeWine named him to head the state Public Utilities Commission.Mr. Randazzo, who denies wrongdoing, has not been charged.Court filings and related lawsuits have referred to Governor DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, who have said they were unaware of the illegal payments. Both supported House Bill 6, and Mr. DeWine benefited from hundreds of thousand of dollars in get-out-the-vote support from FirstEnergy during his 2018 election campaign. The company also donated $75,000 to his daughter’s failed bid for a local elective office.FirstEnergy, meanwhile, faces investigation by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission and shareholder lawsuits.And in the five states where it owns electric utilities, utility commissions are likely to require tens of millions of dollars in refunds to customers, in part involving scandal-related spending.On Wednesday, the company said in a statement that it “has accepted responsibility for its actions related to House Bill 6 and has taken significant steps to put past issues behind us.”“Today we are a different, stronger company with a sound strategy and focused on a bright future,” it added.Mr. DeVillers, the former U.S. attorney, said that nonprofits like those central to the FirstEnergy scandal have been largely ignored by law enforcement. Enforcement of restrictions in the federal tax code on 501(c)(4) groups has been lax.Dave Anderson, the communications director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that follows the energy industry, said that might now change.“This is a case that really illustrates how they can be used for criminal malfeasance,” he said, referring to nonprofits. Now, he said, lawyers who told clients that 501(c)(4) groups are safe conduits for secret cash may be “holding their breath and thinking, ‘Maybe the convictions will be thrown out.’” More

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      Trump Steers Campaign Donations Into PAC That Covers His Legal Fees

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      A previously unnoticed change in Donald Trump’s online fund-raising appeals allows him to divert a sizable chunk of his 2024 contributions to a group that has spent millions to cover his legal fees.Facing multiple intensifying investigations, former President Donald J. Trump has quietly begun diverting more of the money he is raising away from his 2024 presidential campaign and into a political action committee that he has used to pay his personal legal fees.The change, which went unannounced except in the fine print of his online disclosures, raises fresh questions about how Mr. Trump is paying for his mounting legal bills — which could run into millions of dollars — as he prepares for at least two criminal trials, and whether his PAC, Save America, is facing a financial crunch.When Mr. Trump kicked off his 2024 campaign in November, for every dollar raised online, 99 cents went to his campaign, and a penny went to Save America.But internet archival records show that sometime in February or March, he adjusted that split. Now his campaign’s share has been reduced to 90 percent of donations, and 10 percent goes to Save America.The effect of that change is potentially substantial: Based on fund-raising figures announced by his campaign, the fine-print maneuver may already have diverted at least $1.5 million to Save America.And the existence of the group has allowed Mr. Trump to have his small donors pay for his legal expenses, rather than paying for them himself.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, did not answer detailed questions about why the Trump operation has changed how the funds he is raising are being split. Save America technically owns the list of email addresses and phone numbers of his supporters — one of the former president’s most valuable assets — and the campaign is effectively paying the PAC for access to that list, he explained.“Because the campaign wants to ensure every dollar donated to President Trump is spent in the most cost-effective manner, a fair-market analysis was conducted to determine email list rentals would be more efficient by amending the fund-raising split between the two entities,” Mr. Cheung said in a written statement.Mr. Trump gave the keynote speech at the state Republican convention in Georgia this month. Onstage, he mentioned the indictments against him, which have become intertwined with his fund-raising efforts.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesThe different rules governing what political action committees and candidate campaign committees can pay for are both dizzying and somewhat in dispute. But generally, a PAC cannot spend money directly on the candidate’s campaign, and a campaign committee cannot directly pay for things that benefit the candidate personally.For more than a year, before Mr. Trump was a 2024 candidate, Save America has been paying for bills related to various investigations into the former president and his allies. In February 2022, the PAC announced that it had $122 million in its coffers.By the beginning of 2023, the PAC’s cash on hand was down to $18 million, filings show. The rest had been spent on staff salaries, on the costs of Mr. Trump’s political activities last year — including some spending on other candidates and groups — and in other ways. That included the $60 million that was transferred to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that is supporting Mr. Trump. And more than $16 million went to pay legal bills.Mr. Trump’s rivals are not similarly splitting their online proceeds with an affiliated PAC. The websites of former Vice President Mike Pence, former Ambassador Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina direct all the proceeds to their campaign committees. The same goes for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Vivek Ramaswamy.Mr. Trump at a campaign event in Manchester, N.H., in April. On his campaign website, supporters can buy an “I Stand With Trump” T-shirt and other merchandise alluding to his costly legal troubles.Sophie Park for The New York Times“I think in this particular situation, specifically because of the use of the leadership PAC to pay legal expenses and potentially other expenses that would be illegal personal use of campaign money, there’s an unusual incentive for the leadership PAC to take in more than it normally would,” said Adav Noti, senior vice president and legal director of Campaign Legal Center.In the run-up to Mr. Trump’s latest campaign, his legal bills exploded in size. Save America spent $1.9 million in what it identified as legal expenses in the first half of 2022. That figure ballooned to nearly $14.6 million in the second half of last year, federal records show.In late 2022, a Trump adviser said that about $20 million had been set aside by Save America PAC to cover legal expenses.Since then, Mr. Trump has been indicted twice, once by a Manhattan grand jury on charges stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star, and once by a federal grand jury in Florida on charges including violations of the Espionage Act arising from Mr. Trump’s possession of classified material and government records long after he left office.A prominent attorney, Todd Blanche, left his white-collar law firm in April to join the former president’s legal team and is now representing him in both cases, and Mr. Trump recently met with about a half-dozen lawyers in Florida.Mr. Trump’s legal troubles are deeply intertwined with his political campaign and fund-raising efforts. His campaign store is selling an “I Stand With Trump” T-shirt showing the date of his indictment in Manhattan (“03.30.2023”) for $36; it recently added a second shirt with his Florida indictment date (“06.08.2023”) for $38. Half the featured items on the store’s landing page show a fake mug shot and the words “not guilty.”And Mr. Trump’s usual legal strategy — delay, delay, delay — could prove costly as overlapping teams of white-collar lawyers defend him in the federal case and the Manhattan criminal case, as well as in the investigation in Georgia, where Mr. Trump could face yet another indictment this summer for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. He is also facing an intensifying investigation by the special counsel Jack Smith into his efforts to cling to power after losing the election.It remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will try to use his campaign funds to pay for lawyers, should he run into difficulties with the political action committee — and whether such a move would run afoul of spending rules.“He can use the campaign to pay for legal bills that arise out of candidate or officeholder activity — and of course, some of the current legal matters fall into that category, and some do not, and some are in a gray area,” Mr. Noti said. “It really depends on what matter we’re talking about.”Jason Torchinsky, a Republican election lawyer, said he believed Mr. Trump was barred from using Save America donations to pay his personal legal expenses now that he’s a candidate, arguing that doing so would be “an excessive contribution” under Federal Election Commission precedent. And he said Mr. Trump could not use campaign money at all, because it would qualify as personal use.There have been signs that Mr. Trump’s campaign has been carefully monitoring its expenses.He has mainly attended events organized by other groups, as opposed to staging his own large-scale political rallies, which were the lifeblood of his two past runs for president and are one of his favorite parts of campaigning. Those rallies are expensive, costing at least $150,000 and usually more than $400,000.Mr. Trump has held only one full-scale rally in the seven months he has been running, with a second scheduled on July 1 in South Carolina, his first in an early-nominating state. (A rally in Iowa on May 13 was canceled after a tornado warning, though the weather cleared and Mr. DeSantis pointedly held an impromptu event nearby.)People familiar with the Trump campaign’s plans have said that the dearth of rallies was as much about husbanding resources as it was about getting Mr. Trump to engage with voters in a more traditional way. The people also suggested that more large-scale events might come in the fall, as the primary race heats up.But the fund-raising surges that Mr. Trump experienced after his first indictment at the end of March and again in June are expected to obscure a broader fund-raising slowdown. His campaign announced that he had raised $12 million in the first week after his first indictment and $7 million in the week after his second one. He will next disclose the state of his PAC and campaign’s finances in federal filings in July.Mr. Trump is unusually dependent on online fund-raising. He has held only one major campaign fund-raiser that was billed as such by his team: the event at Bedminster on the evening of his indictment. It raised $2 million. More