Jan 1, 2024

Welcome back and here are some numbers to kick off the sprint to the 2024 elections. This email will cover December 2023 and the first week of January 2024 as it holds some really interesting twists. Lets get right to the good stuff as there are some great numbers in here that have yet to be reported anywhere else.

1. AFP dropped a $16 million dollar digital ad buy in support of Nikki Haley. Yes you read that right, $16M. It is the largest single ad buy we have ever seen. The next largest single ad placement we’ve seen is $6.8M by Schumer’s Senate Majority Pac against Oz last cycle.
2. $40 million was spent in December, almost half of that ($18M) was spent by Haley supporting Stand for America.
3. DeSantis had the most spent in opposition to his candidacy in December, not surprisingly, 100% of it came from SFA. What was surprising was the amount $10.8M

Take a look at the below and let us know what we missed or if you have a different take on the content. There will be two sets of numbers, January and then December numbers.

To the numbers:
The numbers presented below are from January 1 to Present

Top Lines:

$35,124,220.26 has been spent on IE since January 1, that’s a huge number and almost all of it comes from AFP in support of Haley.

Americans for Prosperity (now Haley aligned)

$21,682,414.40 spent in the first week of January, all of it in support of Haley. That is a lot of money to drop in one week and one week out from the Iowa caucuses.

Stand For America (Gov. Haley Aligned)
$4,248,243.11 was spent in January, split almost evenly between supporting Haley and opposing DeSantis. Its worth nothing that SFA had $17M cash on hand at the last reporting period, they have spent $55M since they last reported, that’s $35M more than they had cash on hand. This all means SFA has seen a significant influx of major donors since the last report.

But since this newsletter is about helping you hedge outcomes, major money is a terrible predictor of who will win the GOP Presidential Primary.

Make America Great Again Inc. (Trump Aligned)

$2,340,773.82 was spent in January.

$2,160,032.33 spent opposing Haley

$105,980.30 spent opposing Christie

$63,127.19 spent supporting Trump

$11,634.00 spent opposing DeSantis

Its notable that the largest expenditure by MAGA Inc in the first week of January was against Haley instead of supporting Trump which has been their pattern. Its also notable that they spent more opposing Chris Christie than they spent supporting Trump. And only pennies were spent opposing DeSantis.

Never Back Down/Fight Right (Gov. DeSantis aligned) we are lumping them together because its the same money, and the same people supporting the same candidate  

$2,051,997 spent in January.

$878,326.82 spent opposing Haley

$793,748.00 spent Supporting DeSantis

$379,921.75 spent opposing Trump

Tell It Like It Is PAC (Christie Aligned) -
$1,007,221.56 was spent about evenly between supporting Christie and opposing Trump.

Good Fight LLC (DeSantis Aligned)

$1,369,228.00 was spent in January

This is a new PAC formed to support DeSantis, but given the similarity of the name and the fact that it is using the same vendors as NBD and Fight Right, the same ole folks in DeSantis world.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/22/us/politics/desantis-never-back-down.html

December Numbers:

$40,912,064.01 was spent in December

Stand for America (Gov. Haley Aligned)

$18,115,875.88 was spent in December

$10,869,128.00 was spent opposing DeSantis

$7,196,747.88 was spent supporting Haley

NBD/Fight Right/Good Fight (Gov. DeSantis Aligned)

$9,055,876.93 was spent in December

$5,924,523.89 was spent opposing Haley

$3,013,283 was spent supporting DeSantis

MAGA Inc (Trump Aligned)

$4,640,933.56 was spent in December

$3,492,389.35 was spent opposing Haley

$1,011,490.33 was spent supporting Trump

$137,053.88 was spent opposing DeSantis

Americans for Prosperity (Gov. Haley Aligned)

$3,207,016.51 was spent in December, all of it in support of Haley.

Tell It Like It Is (Gov. Christie Aligned)

$1,280,319.49 was spent in December and per usual it was split evenly between supporting Christie and opposing Trump.

There’s you’re wrap up of December and the first week of January with some pretty wild numbers.  We will see what they look like over the next week heading into Iowa next Monday. The NH primary is later in January and the end of year reports for 527s is due on Jan 31st, so we should have many more interesting updates along the way.

Perspective Strategies is using these insights and unique data sets to run the most effective and engaging advocacy campaigns in the country. Almost every organization would benefit from the assistance of a separate entity reenforcing messaging and outreach. 501(c)3 (c)4, and Super PACs are agile and effective vehicles for creating influential advocacy. If these types of vehicles could give your advocacy a boost, reach out to find out how we do it.
 
Per usual, as a part of the updates, if you know of others who would like to receive these spending updates, they can now signup at www.getperspective.co/newsletter.

These numbers are being generated by the 527tracker, a data platform developed by Perspective Strategies that aggregates, analyzes, and alerts to all federal Super PAC spending in real time. If these types of numbers or analysis are important to you, or if you are on a campaign and need real-time spending alerts, go check out the dashboard.