Political history is full of dynamic duos: Antony and Cleopatra, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, just to name a few. Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are not one of them.
In late April, at the height of the media surrounding the news that Gaetz was being investigated for sex trafficking, the two controversial Congress members announced that they were teaming up for a fundraising campaign dubbed “America First.” Fast forward to July and… it’s not going so well.
Just days after being hilariously pranked by a comedian and seeing many of their rallies canceled, the Daily Beast is reporting just how abysmal a financial failure the Gaetz (R-FL) and Greene (R-GA) team-up has been. In a nutshell? These two nutshells have reportedly spent four times what they’ve raised.
Since Gaetz and Greene kicked off their joint fundraising committee with a May 7 event at The Villages in central Florida, their campaigns and joint fundraising committee have posted a combined loss of $342,000. And according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, that joint fundraising effort, “Put America First,” reported only $59,345.54 in contributions.
That sort of meager haul would be fine for a dinner or one-time event, but Gaetz and Greene have repeatedly held high-profile events and spent a whopping $287,036.19 to hold them—meaning they’re in the hole by more than $225,000.
Even someone who’s bad at math should be able to figure out that the calculations on that equal “yikes.” The fundraising committee’s two biggest donors are Gaetz and Greene themselves, as each contributed $150,000 to the fund. Beyond that, the Daily Beast reports that only four (four!) people have made contributions of $500 or more. FOUR.
Individually and apart from the committee, Gaetz and Greene raised $1.34 million and $1.31 million, respectively, during this year’s second quarter. While those numbers are impressive (and sort of baffling considering who we’re talking about here), they actually represent a drop-off from earlier fundraising. Especially in Greene’s case, as she managed to get people to fork over $3.2 million of their hard-earned money to show their support for her in Q1. For Gaetz, the decrease was less dramatic: he raised $1.82 million in Q1. Still, $1.82 million could pay a lot of “tuition.”
(Via the Daily Beast)