DeSantis in the Headwind: Why Trump Challenger Doubts Are Growing “A Matter of Life and Death” – That’s What the Failed Grain Deal Means for the World

The euphoria is gone. Two months after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis entered the race for the White House, the Republican presidential nominee is already out of breath. Last weekend it was announced that his campaign staff would lay off just over ten percent of employees. DeSantis, who was considered the most dangerous party opponent of ex-President Donald Trump at the beginning of this year, wants to cut spending with this shrinking resource.

This may sound contradictory at first glance, as DeSantis is considered a gifted fundraiser. The Republicans raised about $ 150 million in the second quarter of the current year, his advisers recently announced. However, a second look shows that this success story was a matter of numerical acrobatics.

For starters, only 30 percent of that money — about $20 million — is in DeSantis’ campaign coffers. The remaining donations were collected by his “Never Back Down” campaign vehicle, which was independent on paper. (Direct agreements between campaign committees and Super PACs such as “Never Back Down” are illegal in the US.) Although collecting is actually the wrong word, DeSantis quickly transferred more than $82 million in donations at the start of his campaign, which he had received during the 2022 gubernatorial campaign on «Never Back Down».

In contrast, 44-year-old DeSantis lived the big life in the early months of his election campaign. His campaign cost nearly $8 million by the end of June. The bottom line is that his campaign coffers are down to $9 million — the remaining $3 million are donations that DeSantis shouldn’t spend until he wins the Republican primary.

But it doesn’t look like that at the moment. Opinion polls clearly see Trump at the top of the field. The 77-year-old former president is not necessarily flooded with money: in the second quarter of 2023 he earned $ 17.7 million, with small donors in particular remaining loyal to him. But there is more than $22.5 million in Trump’s campaign coffers. Another right-wing presidential candidate who doesn’t have to worry about money: South Carolina senator Tim Scott. The 57-year-old sits on a campaign fund that exceeds $21 million.

Biden raised nearly $20 million

Money is also not the problem for Joe Biden. The president also resorted to numerical acrobatics to obscure his collection result. Q2 donations totaled $19.9 million — not around $72 million, as Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez had announced.

The difference can be explained by the donations received from the Democratic Party’s national vending machine. Biden can also spend this money on the 2024 election campaign, as Democrats are doing everything they can to enable the incumbent president to serve a second term.

Biden, however, is not undisputed. In the primaries, the president is challenged by lawyer and activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., among others. The nephew of the 1963 assassinated president raised $6.3 million in donations in the second quarter, an attractive amount for a political novice.

One of the clients was a certain Eric Clapton from England. However, American politicians are not allowed to accept campaign donations from foreigners, even if the donor is one of the best guitarists in the world. So Kennedy had to return the $5,000. (aargauerzeitung.ch)