When former President Donald Trump reluctantly tossed a lifeline last week to venture capitalist J.D. Vance’s struggling Senate campaign, he may have shaken up an already unstable primary field.
Now, one week later, that endorsement has already paid dividends.
In a Friday filing with the Federal Election Commission, J.D. Vance for Senate reported receiving more money this week than it had directly raised in the first three months of the year combined. The report comes on the heels of a $3.5 million super PAC injection from Vance’s billionaire backer Peter Thiel earlier this week.
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A closer look, however, suggests the skies aren’t quite as clear as they may seem.
First, this is all relative to Vance’s meager overall fundraising rate. Over the first three months of the year, his campaign had directly raised $38,000, total. It drew another $270,000 from an affiliated committee, and ended March with a little more than $1.6 million on hand—an amount his top rivals Josh Mandel and Mike Gibbons each more than doubled.
But on Friday, exactly one week after snagging Trump’s late-game endorsement, Vance reported an injection of $88,652 in individual contributions. The money came in the form of a transfer from a group called Ohioans for JD, an official joint committee tied to the campaign.
The cash was spread among 50 donations of $1,000 or more. But because of nuances in Federal Election Commission filing requirements close to an election, the total transfer was likely much higher than that, including smaller dollar amounts that didn’t make the reporting cut.
The influx, less than two weeks out from the May 3 primary, is no doubt welcome in Vance’s camp. And on the surface, the report, along with a jump in the polls, suggests Trump’s endorsement may have done what Vance’s billionaire backers never did—moved the political needle.
For months, Vance could not seem to get his poll numbers out of the basement, no matter how much he spent. And his fundraising efforts had begun to dry up, particularly in-state. He was burning cash, with his last report—covering April 1 to April 13—showing a $935,000 spending spree, offset with a whopping $910 in total contributions.
The campaign was chucking off so much cash that at the end of March, Vance reached into his own pocket for a $600,000 bridge loan. To put that amount in perspective, two days before Trump got behind him, the campaign had about $690,000 in the bank.
But that’s just on the surface. A closer look at these latest transfers tells a more nuanced story, and suggests that maybe Ohioans still aren’t ready to go all-in behind their self-styled hillbilly hero.
For instance, they aren’t all thanks to the Trump effect. While nearly all of the original donations to the joint committee were dated March 31 or later, only 20 out of 50 came after Trump’s April 15 pronouncement.
(One donation, however, is quite literally thanks to Trump—a $2,900 check from Vance’s former primary rival, car salesman Bernie Moreno. Moreno dropped out in February after a talk with Trump, promising the former president he would get behind whichever candidate won his endorsement.)
Perhaps even more troubling, the money is also overwhelmingly from out of state, with only 18 contributions listing Ohio addresses. For a candidate whose friendly pollsters have slammed him for failing to connect to work-a-day Buckeyes, that’s not necessarily a good sign.
In that same vein, a dozen of the donations (all out-of-state) came from people connected to the financial services industry—a total of $29,105. The contributions from Ohioans added up to just $24,585, with $7,785 of that amount coming from a single family.
Of course, money doesn’t mean everything, even in politics. But neither does Trump’s embittered endorsement of his once-obstreperous critic—a move some conservative Buckeyes have blasted.
Still, it’s worth keeping tabs on the cash. As the unsteady race comes down to its May 3 wire, spending might play a pivotal role. Vance can thank Trump for an apparent spike in support, but prior polls consistently showed an electorate with weak attachments to any candidate. In a Fox News poll taken last month, two-thirds of people who support one of the top three candidates said they could change their mind.
And the late-game boost from the GOP’s most influential force made a concrete difference for Vance financially. His friend and corporate mentor, the billionaire tech mogul Peter Thiel, cut a new $3.5-million check to a super PAC supporting Vance, Politico reported on Tuesday. Thiel, who hadn’t donated to the group since he plunked down $10 million in seed money last March, now has a total $13.5 million invested in the Hillbilly Elegy author.
Before this new round, however, the super PAC, called “Protect Ohio Values” (POV PAC), was on fumes. Between January and March, it spent $5.8 million on promotional efforts to get Vance’s numbers out of the basement, with mixed results.
Further, no one gave the super PAC any money in those three months, and by quarter’s end POV PAC’s $10.4 million in total contributions (including Thiel’s original $10 million) dwindled to about $290,000—wiping out Thiel’s seed cash and then some.
But after Trump’s pronouncement, Thiel threw in that rejuvenating $3.5 million, and POV PAC came back online. It quickly spent more than $2.2 million to juice the news.
And as the endorsement reportedly shook loose more Thiel money, it also seems to have raised some hackles among Vance’s well-funded competition, who have begun to armor up their accounts—and shell out—ahead of the May 3 election.
After Thiel’s contribution was reported, frontrunner Mike Gibbons injected another $250,000 into his campaign account. It’s the eighth such loan the investment banker has made to date, for a total $16.6 million.
But while Gibbons has consistently led in polls, he’s only raised $1 million from supporters. He only pocketed another $6,800 in a report filed a few days after Vance snagged the Trump endorsement.
Another leading candidate, former state treasurer Josh Mandel, also beefed up this week. Mandel, who has consistently run second, and ahead of Vance, stashed $146,000 in donations transferred from his fundraising committee—outmuscling Vance’s recent haul by more than $60,000.
A third candidate, Jane Timken, has recently polled just behind Vance. But Timken, a top Republican fundraiser, has powerful backers of her own. Days after Trump weighed in, she saw $380,000 in media support from the conservative Winning for Women super PAC.
The endorsement also landed Vance back in the crosshairs. A super PAC affiliated with the pro-Mandel Club for Growth, which has spent $1.8 million opposing Vance to date, took out $170,000 for media in the last week.
But it’s also telling that at the same time, the pro-Mandel super PAC went even harder at someone else. In the days after Trump got behind Vance, Club For Growth unleashed $1.3 million in attacks—on Mike Gibbons.
