Whatever Happened To Jeb Bush’s $100 Million

February 23, 2016 in Daily Bulletin

Jeb Bush has suspended his campaign to become President of the United States. When he entered the race one of the biggest things he had going for him was his ability to amass funds – burning over $130 million in his bid for the Presidency. Nicholas Confessore and Sarah Cohen took a look at where all of the funding went:

  • By far the biggest line item was advertising, which ate up $84 million of the budget.
  • The campaign also paid $10 million to consultants who did opposition research and helped get people to the voting booths in battleground states.
  • A campaign has to spend some money to raise more money. Jeb Bush and team spent $16,000 on valets to park the cars of donors who came to Bush’s events.
  • The campaign also spent $90,000 on a branding campaign for Jeb! – though as the writers point out, in the end the only brand that really seemed to stick to him was “low energy”.
  • A campaign lives and dies on the efforts of late night volunteers. Jeb spent almost $5,000 feeding them pizza. Domino’s seemed to be a favoured choice.

Read the entire breakdown here.

See a similar breakdown for Obama’s more successful run in 2012 here. And read Centives’ coverage of the 2016 election here.

Source: The New York Times