We all know the GOP has a serious grifter problem but I hadn’t quite realized how bad it was until I started looking at FEC filing last month. I was interested when reports starting emerging about DeSantis “blowing through money.” And while DeSantis’ filings were predictable and mostly boring (note: he does not have a spending issue) I became intrigued by another candidate’s filings, Senator Tim Scott. Here’s a 🧵on what I found:
Tim Scott entered into the 2021-2022 midterm cycle with a little more than $5 million on hand. This was his third Senate race and he had won his other two by at least 30 points each. Having spent over $120 million on Jaime Harrison in his failed attempt to beat Lindsey Graham in 2020 the DNC was not looking to light any more money on fire in a hopeless SC senate race so they declined to officially back any opponent against Scott. This should have been an easy, relatively cheap reelection campaign, with Scott parlaying his excess donations into his Presidential campaign. And while it was an easy victory and Scott did parlay his leftover funds, Tim Scott walked out of the 2022 midterms having spent more than all but 3 other GOP candidates (Walker, Oz and Rubio) on a race where his Democrat opponent only raised $135,365 total. How was that even possible? Let’s take a look. After combing through his 2022 FEC filings here is a breakdown of his major expenditures:
