I suspect we’ll get a similar report from MTN News this week, though perhaps ‘just’ 80% of Bullock’s money is now coming from out-of-state. It’s hard to say.
After doing a very quick search, I found that 681 donations came from Montana, while 1,237 came from California and 541 came from New York. There are 9,562 separate donations to Bullock this period.
Today I’m going to do a quick run through Bullock’s latest FEC report, which covers the period March 9 to June 30.
For that three month period, Bullock raised $10.6 million, spent about $3.4 million, and now has nearly $7.6 million in the bank.
The FEC reports are so much better than the COPP reports in that you can sort the expenditures by size, allowing you to see what the most money is being spent on.
Here are some highlights from the spending side of the report:
- $535,000 to D.C.’s Authentic Campaigns for database services and online ads and consulting
- $350,000 to D.C.’s Mothership Strategies for online ads and consulting
- $220,000 to Maryland’s Wilke Communications for direct mail
- $126,000 to Bullock’s previous campaign - Bullock for President - to buy up his own email list (doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either)
- $96,000 to Act Blue for merchant fees based on money raised
- $30,000 to North Carolina’s Blue Wave Political Partners for fundraising consulting and compliance work
- $21,000 to Pennsylvania’s NGP VAN for campaign software
- $16,000 to California’s GRBR LLC DBA Greenbrier Partners for consulting
- $13,000 to New York’s Global Strategy Group for research
- $10,000 to Colorado’s Gusto for payroll taxes on six campaign employees
- $14,500 in salary for Megan Simpson
- $8,500 to Arizona’s Paragon Solutions for merchant fees
That’s just the first page of results for Bullock, or about 30 transactions out of the 167 in the report.
Other employees on the campaign are Lily Ross, Michael Toppen, Bailey Mohr (based in D.C.), Olivia Bercow, and Rebecca Kuntz.
The real meat and potatoes happens on that first page - most of the rest of the transactions in the report are contribution refunds, as most out-of-staters don’t know our election laws and therefore donate way more than they legally can.
And not all the spending is out-of-state. Some money is spent in Montana, such as:
- $4,000 for video footage (bought from the Bullock for President campaign)
- $3,500 to the Montana Democratic Party for a voter file
- $3,000 to UPS for postage
- $2,500 to rent an office
- $1,300 to the Billings Times for printing
- $965 to the Postal Service for postage
That’s most of the Montana transactions. It comes to around $15,000...or a drop in the bucket compared to what Bullock’s spending out-of-state.
I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’ve been saying it for years - how do you create jobs in Montana by spending your money outside Montana?
If creating jobs in Montana was important, wouldn’t you spend your money here?
But spending money here to create jobs is not important, for Bullock or just about anyone else running for office, Dem or Republican.
Follow the money. It tells the truth.