While Pence’s 2024 campaign has $1.2 million in cash on hand, it also owes $620,000, which is a huge red flag for a presidential campaign.
With debt already mounting, former vice president Mike Pence’s 2024 campaign could be in an existential financial bind.
When its campaign finance form is expected to be made public on Sunday, the campaign told NBC News that it will claim having raised $3.3 million in the third quarter, with $1.2 million in cash on hand and $620,000 in debt. According to the campaign, Pence contributed himself with $150,000 from his personal assets.
Pence’s stats raise concerns about his capacity to continue to compete in the GOP primaries because they show a campaign that is seriously under stress and that is operating on a fundamentally different financial landscape than that of his competitors. Particularly amassing debt has long been a symptom of presidential campaigns in difficulty – and possibly about to terminate.
An frightening similarity to this time eight years ago can be drawn from the most recent GOP presidential primary season: At the same point in the 2015 election cycle, Scott Walker’s campaign for governor of Wisconsin at the time reported having just under $1 million in the bank and $161,000 in debt. At that point, he withdrew from the competition.
The ensuing report on campaign spending Walker’s campaign filing, which was stopped, demonstrated how quickly events may deteriorate. The report, which covered the last three months of 2015, revealed that his campaign had more than $1.2 million in debt that needed to be paid off. Walker needed a year to raise the funds necessary to pay off the obligation.
Compared to rivals he once worked with in Washington, Pence’s financial situation this year is not favorable. Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley’s campaign reported finishing the third quarter with $9.1 million to spend on the 2024 primaries, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign reported having $5 million in the bank. Even though Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina has been spending a lot, he entered the 2024 race with a federal campaign account that had been amassed over years in the Senate.
The campaign of former president Donald Trump stated that it had around $36 million available to spend in the 2024 primary. Until the campaigns submit reports to the Federal Election Commission, which are required by the end of Sunday, all of those numbers are based on campaign announcements and cannot be independently verified.
Pence has $1.2 million in the bank, which restricts the campaign’s options. According to a study of his second-quarter financial report by NBC News, at least $200,000 of it is only useable in the general election and is not actually usable during the primary season. It was raised from donors who had previously contributed the maximum amount possible for the primary campaign, which explains why.
Unknown amounts of the third-quarter funding that Pence raised are likewise not eligible for the primaries. The campaign refuses to provide more information.
As the race to make the third Republican primary debate on November 8 continues, the state of Pence’s campaign finances is becoming apparent. Candidates must amass 70,000 individual donations according to the requirements of the Republican National Committee in order to be considered for the stage. With only a few weeks left until the debate, Pence had to race to get to the first one.
The amount of money Pence’s campaign has raised has not been disclosed, and it has not made any statements about his position on the third debate criterion. However, the small sum suggests Pence could need to make another significant climb in order to be able to take part. He has reached the polling threshold, although he is trailing in fifth place in the average of national polls from FiveThirtyEight, and further behind in the average of surveys from Iowa.
Often in contrast to Trump, his former running mate, Pence has been campaigning on the platform of “traditional conservative values” and positioning himself as a champion of those values. In spite of pressure from Trump, he certified the results of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, and has since spoken frequently about having done his duty and maintained his oath to the Constitution. He has been preaching the importance of a strong and active America on the world stage, criticizing Trump and others for their remarks regarding the conflict in the Ukraine between Russia and the West, abortion rights, and other topics.
Possibly in the past, the GOP would have praised Pence’s Reagan-era values. Instead, his polling numbers have stagnated and it looks that his party has made another decision.