Thread by @ShaneGoldmacher

THREAD: I wanted to explain in detail why the Trump announcement that he raised $82 million in the first six months of 2021 was inaccurate, since this posted around 12 a.m.

There are still many wrong headlines about $82 million raised out there…

1/X nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/…

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1421682670850002946

First, here is a screenshot of the inaccurate announcement, which explicitly says "his affiliated political committees raised nearly $82 Million during the period between January 1st and June 30th,"

The $102 million cash figure, fwiw, was spot on.

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Overlapping Trump committees that transfer money make the math complicated. The 4 relevant committees:

— Trump Make America Great Again Committee (TMAGAC)
— Make America Great Again (MAGA) PAC
— Save America (SA) PAC
— Save America JFC

Let's start with TMAGAC...

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FEC records via WinRed show TMAGAC raised $34.4 million in *new donations* in 2021.

But during those same six months it transferred $53.8 million to Save America PAC and $5.8 million to MAGA PAC.

Those are, in essence, transfers from one Trump-affiliated entity to another.

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But the Trump team counted those transfers as new money raised.

The difference between the sum of the transfers (~$59.6 million) and what it raised in new money (~$34.4 million) is roughly how much his fundraising was overstated: ~$25.2 million.

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You can actually check this another way, which was the initial headline of story based on early WinRed filings.

All of Trump's committees use WinRed to raise most of their money and they reported $56.5 million raised in new funds in the first six months on WinRed.

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Anyway, take that actual $56.5 million raised via WinRed and add the ~$25.2 million in transfers of money that was previously raised and you have...the announced $82 million.

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How was so much available to transfer?

TMAGAC, a joint committee with RNC, had been the main vehicle that Trump raised $$ into in 2020 from small donors.

It ended last year with $59.8 million in the bank due to his post-election fund-raising blitz. nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/…

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To be clear, Trump raised a ton in 2021 — by far the most of anyone in the Republican Party.

He is the party's dominant fundraiser. Full stop.

But he didn't raise the $82 million that was announced and drove headlines (a few of which have been corrected or since changed).

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Thanks for reading and remember to always check fund-raising figures announced by campaigns!

And a huge shout-out to my partner in number-crunching @rachel_shorey who may or may not have drained a MiFi device yesterday while in a car.
nytimes.com/2021/07/31/us/…
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