Thread by @lizburgh

When I wrote this thread on Nov 9, AOC had only filed campaign data through Oct 14. I've been checking back every day to see when the rest of her data became available

Today's the day! 😃

This thread might not be as EXCITING as the last one but I want to look at her final #'s

https://twitter.com/lizburgh/status/1325812920001961987

UPDATE: When I wrote that thread on 11/9, the AP & NYBoE cited NY-14 as "100% reporting"

And nothing changed until 12/4!

The updated👇vote totals for NY-14

👉AOC: 71.6%, 152k
👉Cummings: 27.4%, 58k

(I can assume that's going to be used to discredit EVERYTHING I've ever said)

The vote counts are a little higher but nothing else changed. It doesn't affect her finances.

AOC still got a smaller share of the vote than she did in 2018. But there WAS a higher voter turnout.

AOC Vote Share
2018: 78.2%
2020: 71.6%

AOC Vote Count
2018: 110,318
2020: 152,661

OKAY MOVING ON.

Here's a quick recap of her finances from last time.

So as of 👉October 14👈 she had:

Raised: $17,778,071
Spent: $14,082,509

fec.gov/data/candidate…

And I need to provide more context here.

2018 House race spending stats:

average: $2M
cheapest winning campaign: $231k Serrano (NY-15)
most expensive campaign: $30M Ossoff

opensecrets.org/elections-over…

And now here's what you clicked on this thread for!

As of 👉Nov 23👈 she has:

💰Raised: $19,460,442.63

💰Spent: $16,715,396.84

in her very safe D+29 district where a republican has only cracked 20% once in 20 years.

Out of the $19.5M she raised for her 2020 re-election campaign, we only know where $4,127,124 is from.

That's because the other 78% ($14,773,496) is UNitemized
(which means "small donations" under $200 & donors don't have to be named).

AOC is #1 out of ALL OF CONGRESS for this.

The fact that 78% of her $19M in donations came from small donations is extremely unusual.

I cannot overstate how insane both of those #'s are.

She's #1 out of ALL House, Senate & Prez races

#2 is Bernie Sanders

#3 is in prison for campaign finance fraud

#4 & #5 are monsters

As for the amount she raised...

Joe Crowley, the incumbent AOC beat, raised $21M total from 1997 to 2018!!!

AOC raised the 6th most $ of ANY REP this year.

She was beat by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi & 4 Republicans.

She claimed her average donation was ~$24. How many $24 donations does it take to reach $19.5M?
👉810,852

For reference, how many registered voters are in her district?
👉360,452

And speaking of her district, how much of her $ came from people living in NY-14?
👉1%

NY?
👉16%

I'm going to keep comparing her to Crowley because his career total is basically her 2020 total.

Crowleys lifetime #1 zip code was Jackson Heights.

None of the zip codes AOC represents are represented in her top zip codes.

AOC's spending is tough to analyze & it's confusing to explain why, but I'll do my best.

It's bc she charged $4.2M worth of campaign expenditures to a credit card, then paid those CC bills w/campaign funds

So instead of seeing the real vendor, the CC becomes the vendor

I did a thread a long time ago about her weird credit card usage.

The CC company her campaign uses is BREX, but she lists the payments to them using their long defunct name VEYOND!

I have never encountered another Rep using a credit card in this way.

https://twitter.com/lizburgh/status/1282012040207491073?s=20

I'm using both the FEC's website & OpenSecrets data here.

The actual source of THIS data is the FEC but OpenSecrets pulls in data from other sources & displays it differently (which is handy in this case).

For campaign spending, their reports should look very similar.

OpenSecrets (left👇) shows what the CC paid for

FEC (right👇) shows the payments to BREX

I highlighted all the recipients of >$10k on OpenSecrets & matched them to the FEC's list of top vendors.

The CC obscured some vendors entirely & minimized spending to others substantially

I know this is all very confusing but it's important.

The FEC called out AOC's campaign on 11/7 to remind her TO ITEMIZE HER SPENDING!

That shouldn't need to be said! If you've ever had a work expense reimbursed, you probably itemized more than AOC's $4.2M of "card payments"

Let's look at her largest BREX payment for $351,855 on 6/23/20

What did it pay for?

FB: 330k
Google: 21k
Hertz: 600
Home Depot: 261
Hotels: 150
Lyft: 700
Party City: 53
Staples: 116
Studio Event Staffing: 1650
Uber: 350
Uber Eats: 65
Urban Stems: 92
Veyond!: -3500 pts
Zipcar: 7

It's weird accounting and the FEC isn't okay with it.

👉It obscured $4.5M of her $4.8M spending on Facebook ads👈

(her FB ad spending itself didn't change from my last thread because THAT data was current, not just through Oct 14)

https://twitter.com/lizburgh/status/1325813033575337988?s=20

In total, she spent $7.2M (almost half her spending) on media.

Primarily:
🔹Facebook
🔹Middle Seat Consulting
🔹Google

Her campaign ended with $3M leftover which puts her at #41 for all Representatives for cash on hand.

To wrap this up, here are some points of interest from the 22% of her donations we know about.

-A lot of her money came from Hollywood
-And SF tech execs
-And finally you may recognize Amro Nahas from my JusticeDems thread. He's the Saudi real estate guy

fec.gov/data/receipts/…