Top intruders revealed as Trump racks up his millions: takeaways from new campaign finance reports

Here are four important takeaways from this week’s reporting deadline for super PACs and committees, before candidates file their campaign finance documents next month:

Primary interference revealed

Super PACs from both parties dove into the final round of primary contests to boost their favorite nominees in major congressional races. In one case, it was a Democratic group bolstering their favorite opponent. But the funding behind those efforts was a mystery — until this week.

House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ flagship super PAC, funded a group that entered the Sept. 13 GOP contest to challenge Rep. Annie Kuster (DN.H.). The super PAC made a $125,000 contribution Aug. 25 to Democrats Serve, another super PAC that supports Democrats with a background in public service. This group aired nearly $570,000 in TV ads spurring Bob Burns, a far-right Republican who opposes abortion rights, against moderate GOP Mayor George Hansel, who was backed by the Republican governor. Chris Sununu.

House Majority PAC only had to disclose contributions made during the month of August by this reporting deadline, so it’s possible super PAC Democrats will be serving with even more money in early September. Another race connection: Abby Curran Horrell, executive director of House Majority PAC, was previously a top aide to Kuster.

Meanwhile, a GOP group that played in New Hampshire in favor of Hansel, American Liberty Action PAC, received funding from two lesser-known right-wing groups that were active in the 2022 primaries.

American Liberty Action PAC secured $1.6 million from the Eighteen Fifty Four Fund, a group formed by Kevin McLaughlin, a former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which tried to thwart far-right GOP primary candidates . American Liberty Action PAC also secured a $2.6 million transfer from the American Prosperity Alliance, a group formed in May that lists Parker Poling, the executive director of the Republican National Congressional Committee 2020, as a member of its board of directors. administration, according to OpenSecrets.

American Liberty Action PAC also passed the GOP primaries in August to successfully block two controversial Republican candidates: Carl Paladino, a congressional hopeful in New York whose past comments include praising Adolf Hitler on radio, and Anthony Sabatini, a MAGA-aligned state representative who sought a House seat in Florida.

Trump’s PAC has spent millions on legal fees – and provided no new fundraising insights

The former president’s executive committee made no contributions to candidates or Republican causes in August outside of a $150,000 donation to a PAC opposed to Cheney. But he spent $3.8 million on legal fees and just under $800,000 on events and travel. The group still has $99 million in cash, according to its latest filing.

Save America PAC primarily does its fundraising through another group, the Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, which reports its finances on a different schedule. The joint committee did not transfer any of its proceeds to Save America PAC in August, so the latter group’s monthly fundraising report does not include any information on the response generated by the massive fundraising operation. of Trump following the August 8 court-ordered search. for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. The joint committee cited FBI research extensively in fundraising appeals, and it reportedly saw an increase in donations.

Trump’s leadership, the PAC, still has more resources than either national committee of either party. By the end of August, the Democratic and Republican National Committees collectively had $80 million in the bank: $55.8 million for the DNC and $24.2 million for the RNC.

Congressional committees raise much the same — but Senate Democrats have more in the tank

The Republican and Democratic congressional committees were roughly even at fundraising in August, with the Republican National Senate Committee and the Republican National Congressional Committee outpacing their Democratic counterparts by very narrow margins.

The two Senate committees raised approximately $12.6 million each. The Senate Democrats’ campaign arm has a lot more money in the bank for the latter part of the campaign — $45.8 million versus the Republicans’ $16 million — giving the party more cash to move around in. the last weeks of the campaign. (The NRSC has long maintained that it always planned to frontload its spending, cutting more earlier in the cycle.)

House campaigns enter the home stretch with roughly the same amount of resources. The NRCC raised $15.6 million to the DCCC’s $15.5 million, and both have nine figures in the bank: $110.7 million for the Democrats and $113.2 million for the Republicans.

More spending over time will come from super PACs: Senate Majority PAC, the main super PAC for Senate Democrats, reported $65.8 million in cash at the end of August, while its counterpart in the House, House Majority PAC, said $78 million in the bank.

Republican Senate and House super PACs report on a quarterly, not monthly, schedule, so their latest numbers won’t be available until next month, though they have outpaced Democrats so far this year. The Senate Leadership Fund had just under $105 million in cash at the end of June, while the Congressional Leadership Fund was bringing in nearly $140 million at the time.

Wynn’s Big Check and the Ghost Race of 2024

Casino mogul Steve Wynn resigned as RNC finance chairman in 2018 amid allegations of sexual harassment. But he has not disappeared from politics.

Wynn donated $10 million in August to the Our American Century super PAC, his largest political donation ever disclosed. This group recently got busted leaking $5 million worth of advertising in battleground Senate races.

Meanwhile, the potential Republican-aligned super PAC of 2024 continues to draw strong support from major Republican donors. Opportunity Matters Fund, which is associated with Sen. Tim Scott (RS.C.), brought in $2.5 million from Benjamin Navarro and $1 million from the political arm of the Club for Growth, a former Trump ally who has clashed with him this year. Tech billionaire Larry Ellison has also been a major Scott supporter, but he didn’t contribute in the past month.

Opportunity Matters Fund has run ads in several battleground states — including Iowa and Nevada — that feature Scott speaking directly to the camera while promoting a Republican candidate.