Republican Congressional Candidate Left Nearly $400k Unspent During 2014 Race Against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz

  |  
Aug 2, 2018

A Republican congressional candidate and perennial loser has established a pattern of raising big money, claiming to run political campaigns against Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), but Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that he doesn’t spend his funds to actively campaign against the scandal-ridden Democrat.

According to the FEC records which show massive cash intake, one might think that candidate Joe Kaufman, who has run against Wasserman-Schultz as a Republican in 2014 and 2016, would have put up a serious fight against her.

But it turns out that Kaufman does not really spend his campaign money, and when he does, he doesn’t spend it on beating his opponent, but rather on raising more money. For example, in 2014, Kaufman raised $830,234, and spent only $502,356, meaning that he left $378,472 on the table:

Here is the cash summary from the same race:

When Kaufman was spending money, most of it went towards fundraising more money, not towards campaigning against Schultz in Florida. For example, FEC records show that he paid a group called Base Connect Inc., a direct mail advertising firm in Washington D.C., 10 times during his campaign, totaling $31,857 of expenditures.

The same goes for another D.C. based firm called Century Data Mailing Service, on which Kaufman spent $232,063.

And then $46,360 to Consolidated Mailing Services out of Sterling, VA.

And then to Legacy Lists, Inc., where he spent $36,455.

Kaufman spent $346,735 of his total expenditures of $502,356 on raising money through mail advertising on just those four firms alone.

The full records show a substantial amount spent on reimbursements that Kaufman made to himself,  and very little money spent in the state of Florida.

He reimbursed himself a total of $8,338.

When it came down to the wire during the 2014, Kaufman failed to spend $378,472. That total just sat in his campaign account unused. The FEC records show no major radio or television advertising purchases. Kaufman spent most of his campaign money on fundraising during the 2014 cycle, and none of it on voter contact, name or face recognition, or anything else that would have helped him beat Wasserman-Schultz.

Kaufman was not even trying to win the race.

Our Latest Articles