DNC Chair Caught Doctoring Fundraising Numbers... Actually Getting Walloped by GOP
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has been caught in a lie about the DNC’s fundraising.
“We raised more money in January, for instance, of 2018 than any January in our history,” Perez said in an interview with C-Span. “So if the question is, ‘Do we have enough money to implement our game plan?’ Absolutely.”
The Washington Post decided to fact check Perez’s statement, and found it to be entirely wrong.
According to their most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, the DNC raised $6 million this past January.
“That was below what it raised in January 2014 ($6.6 million), January 2012 ($13.2 million), January 2011 ($7.1 million) and January 2010 ($9.1 million),” The Post reported.
DNC spokesman Michael Tyler said that Perez “meant to say we raised more money in January than we had in any January since 2012.”
The DNC has also changed how they are counting the amount of money raised.
It has decided to add its fundraising total with the “nearly $1 million” raised by the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund to get the grand total of “nearly $7 million.”
The Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund was established in October 2017 and is a joint fundraising committee made up of 52 different entities, the DNC, the 50 state party committees and the District of Columbia.
Lawrence Noble, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, told The Post that the joint fundraising committee allows donors and campaigns to “add up all the individual contribution limits they have” and then split it up so that “no one goes over the limit.”
“This allows them to tap into very wealthy individuals who write one check, and those individuals often don’t care where the money is going.”
The Republican National Committee, on the other hand, counts their funds the traditional way, without including monthly totals raised by partnerships.
“By contrast, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel’s record fundraising means Republicans have the money to compete in 2018 and beyond,” RNC spokesman Michael Ahrens said.
The RNC raised $12.4 million in January with $40.7 million to spend on hand, according to Roll Call.
The $7.3 million cash the DNC has on hand at the end of January is dwarfed by the $40.7 million cash raised by the RNC, according to the FEC reports.
Additionally, the DNC has $5.6 million in debt while the RNC has no debt.
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