Presidential Candidates - Cash on Hand (Update: transfers)

The FEC site is finally updated for the third quarter and I'm trying my hand at reading it. Data is through 9/30, time period 2017-2020.

The numbers that are usually reported in the media are the funds raised during the quarter, which is clearly important, but at this point in the cycle I think that cash on hand is also pretty important. A campaign whose burn rate is already almost as big as its fundraising has little room to expand as we move towards actually voting and the need for advertising.

Big money donors will often give contributions both for the primary and the general election. Both count as part of the funds raised number and cash on hand, but are not available to spend in the primary. I don't see it called out in the data, but maybe I'm just missing it.

Cash on Hand ($ millions)
-------------------------
Trump -- $83
No surprise that the incumbent has the most cash. He'll need to spend relatively little on the primary, rolling everything over into the general. That buys a lot of lipstick for the pig.

Sanders -- $33.8
Plenty of cash to ramp up spending as needed.
Transfers from authorized committees -- $12.7
Transfer from Senate Committee -- $2.6
Transfer from 2016 Presidential Committee -- $4.6
Transfer from Friends of Bernie Sanders -- $4.5
Not quite sure who "Friends" is, it's flagged against his Senate campaign. I seem to be missing a million somewhere, don't hire me to do your taxes!

Warren -- $25.7
Transfers from authorized committees -- $10.4
Transfer from Senate Committee -- $10.4
Recall that Warren was accepting corporate donations for her Senate campaign, so some of that money is not the small dollar donations she is claiming for this campaign, but whatever.

Buttigieg -- $23.4
I knew that Buttigieg had been raising a lot of money, I guess he's only been spending it on fund raising. When he finally drops out he'll have a big war chest to roll into his 2022 Senate campaign.
Transfers from authorized committees -- Zero

Harris -- $10.5
Transfers from authorized committees -- $1.2
Transfer from Senate Committee -- $1.2

Biden -- $9
What's this? The Great Neoliberal Hope is down to spare change he found in the sofa? Some portion of that $9 million will be earmarked for the general (no idea how much). He's not going to be able to compete in California and the Super Tuesday states without a big increase in fund raising.
Transfers from authorized committees --Zero! I'm guessing without chasing it down that he transferred any leftover Senate money into the Obama/Biden campaign back in the day. The Obama/Biden campaign is showing a COH of $3.3 million against debts of $5.6 million, so no money for Old Joe from there.

Gabbard -- $2.1
I notice a $2.5 million "transfer from other authorized committees" (this appears as a transfer from her Congressional campaign committee) offset by a $0.5 million "transfer to other authorized committees" (back to her Congressional campaign committee, for some reason). In other words, total contributions $6.5 million, total expenditures $6.4 million. Cash on hand is what she transferred from her Congressional account.

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thanatokephaloides's picture

It would be interesting to know where Tulsi stands in all this.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

WoodsDweller's picture

@thanatokephaloides

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

thanatokephaloides's picture

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

relatively low -- shockingly low for a front-runner -- COH numbers are due in part to the fact that he's been spending a lot on private jets lately. Nearly $1mill in the past quarter.

Just a working-class guy.

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@wokkamile
With revelations of problems with more 737 variants, I may never fly on Boeing again. Not the same company that built the 707, 747, and original 737

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

gulfgal98's picture

through his contributions at a far faster rate than Bernie because Biden uses private jets while Bernie mostly flies commercial. Bernie's campaign is in excellent shape. I read that the day of the debates, Bernie's campaign raked in $640,000 from 40,000 individual donors in that 24 hour period! That is an amazing one day haul, especially since they are ALL small, non corporate donors.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Wally's picture

She takes dark money from her Senate campaign and transfers it into her Presidential campaign chest and claims she's only taking individual non-corporate contributions.

And when confronted with this, her supporters try to draw an equivalency with Bernie transfering his Senate campaign money which is also limited to individual non-corporate contributions.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eYK_r_6yY4]

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