Hillary Victory Fund: $2 million for downballot Dems, $22 million for Hillary

Politico has an interesting report, especially in light of the constant refrain that Hillary has raised 10s of millions for downballot Dems while Bernie is all about himself.

First of all, this "Victory Fund" is usefully structured as a cozy "joint fundraising committee", letting it skirt like a ballerina around otherwise onerous campaign finance laws:

The report shows that the joint account, called the Hillary Victory Fund, spent heavily trying to develop a small donor base for Clinton's presidential campaign, but also took advantage of its unique structure to raise nearly $5 million from just 14 mega-rich donors, including entertainment titans Barry Diller, James Cameron and Haim Saban.

Very pragmatic!

In the first quarter of the year, the fund raised $33 million dollars and spent nearly as much. Let's see how that money breaks down:

The idea is that the committee will help the state parties raise money for their general election efforts " [y]et, during the first three months of the year, the $2 million transferred by the Hillary Victory Fund to various state party committees paled in comparison to the $9.5 million it transferred to Clinton's campaign committee or the $3.5 million it transferred to the DNC.

And the Hillary Victory Fund also spent $6.7 million on online ads that mostly looked like Clinton campaign ads, as well as $5.5 million on direct marketing. Both expenses seem intended at least in part to help Clinton build a small donor base, an area in which Sanders has far outpaced her.

Yep. So that's $9.5 million to Hillary's campaign, $12.2 million for what is effectively Hillary marketing and campaign expenses, $3.5 million to DWS's absolutely, definitely neutral DNC, and " drumroll please " two. million. dollars for downballot candidates.

Divided evenly between the 32 state party committees who are part of the fund, that's a gate-storming $62,500 for each state party committee from the Hillary Victory Fund.

Versus a paltry $22 million given to or effectively spent on Hillary's campaign.

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