Democrat Stacey Abrams raised more than $103 million for her losing effort against incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, becoming a media darling during her campaign and subsequent voting rights advocacy. However, her campaign’s expenditures have come under scrutiny as new details emerge about the lingering debt she failed to pay off.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that after raising over $103 million, Stacey Abrams still has lingering debts that are still not paid off. Details on where the money went remain unclear, but one senior Democratic official told the newspaper that “it’s incredibly bad planning, and it shows where their values are at…you can’t look up one day and realize you can’t pay the bills.”
So why did this happen? It appears that even with such a tremendous amount of money coming into the campaign coffers, there wasn’t enough cash flow to cover expenses in time. According to Redding News Review, nearly half of all donations used to fund Abrams’ historic bid came from small donors who gave less than $200 — this type of donor has little incentive to give quickly since they will never receive any tax break or other benefit for their donation. This means that Abrams’ team likely faced long delays waiting for many of these donations to come through, making it difficult for them to plan ahead and properly budget for their campaign’s needs.
Also, many political campaigns tend to spend heavily in the last few weeks before Election Day as they try to make a final push towards victory — and this was certainly true with Abrams’ campaign as well — but without proper financial planning in place beforehand, these last-minute spending sprees can easily put them in debt afterward if they fail to win on Election Day.
Stacey Abram’s failed financial planning serves as a cautionary tale for all candidates running for office – regardless of party affiliation or political ideology – on how not to manage their finances when campaigning for office. Despite raising more than 103 million dollars during her historic run, poor cash flow management meant her team couldn’t keep up with expenses fast enough and left them with lingering debts after Election Day.
