The 2023 year-end filings are in, and the Republican National Committee had a tragic year—its worst fundraising total in a decade and worst in 30 years using inflation-adjusted figures.
The RNC raised $87.2 million and ended the year with $8 million cash on hand, with $1.8 million in outstanding debt. The Democratic National Committee, by comparison, raised $120 million in 2023 and ended the year with nearly three times that of the RNC, $21 million, with just $319,000 in outstanding debt.
The national GOP's fundraising was so anemic that Tyler Bowyer, an RNC national committeeman from Arizona, freaked out, calling it "horrifying" in a tweet. "Anyone defending this is insane," groused Bowyer, an official at the right-wing group Turning Point USA.
Suffice it to say, having essentially $6 million at one's fingertips isn't exactly where a national committee would hope to be heading into a presidential election year.
Democrats celebrated the news with a round of schadenfreude.
But The Bulwark's Tim Miller broadened the lens on RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel's disastrous leadership of the organization. "It’s pretty astonishing that they have stuck with Ronna for over a half decade despite the fact that she has failed on every possible metric: electoral, moral, public relations, fundraising," Miller observed.
McDaniel has failed by nearly every metric but one: Her Donald Trump sycophancy is on point, and that's all that really matters in today's Republican Party. McDaniel's latest Trump bootlicking came after the New Hampshire primary, when she called for the party to "unite" around Trump and end the party's silly exercise in democracy.
Speaking of Trump, in the final quarter of last year, his fundraising and expenditures weren't exactly where a serious presidential candidate would hope to be, either. Trump's Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, took in nearly twice as much as Trump and spent less, stockpiling money while Trump burned it, according to Open Secrets.
Biden amassed nearly $32 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, while Trump raised just under $19 million, barely edging out his last remaining Republican primary opponent, Nikki Haley, who raised roughly $17 million.
Once more, Trump's burn rate in the final quarter outpaced that of both Biden and Haley. Trump spent $23 million—about $4 million more than what he raised—while Haley spent 82% of her intake and Biden spent just 57% of his haul.
Open Secrets' report also included this tidbit about how much money Trump's joint committees were spending to raise money.
Trump’s Save America Joint Fundraising Committee spent another $48 million in 2023 to raise $129 million. Early in the cycle, it is not unusual for groups to spend significant funds on fundraising. But in this case, 40 cents of every dollar went to fundraising.
Spending 40 cents to raise $1 is notably inefficient. By year's end, Trump combined committees spent $149 million, while Biden’s committees spent $67 million.
In fairness to Trump, more than $55 million of his donor money in 2023 went to legal fees. Impressive.
In the meantime, Future Forward, the primary super PAC supporting Biden’s reelection, just directed $250 million of its resources toward a historic ad buy, including $140 million in TV and $110 million in digital and streaming platforms. The spots will begin in August, immediately after the conclusion of Democratic National Convention, and continue through Election Day.
A consistent story line in 2022 was the fact that Democratic candidates consistently and formidably outraised their GOP counterparts. So far this cycle, Biden, the DNC, and most of the other Democratic committees are roundly outraising their Republican counterparts. They are also spending the money on actual campaigning rather than legal fees to boot.
Campaign Action
It is primary season, and Donald Trump seems pretty low energy these days. Kerry and Markos talk about the chances of Trump stumbling through the election season and the need to press our advantage and make gains in the House and Senate. Meanwhile, the right-wing media world is losing its collective minds about Taylor Swift registering younger Americans to vote!
