The 2016 Committee, a super PAC supporting retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson’s presidential campaign, claimed to have raised more than $5 million during the first six months of 2015. But paperwork compiled by the Federal Election Commission shows it failed to come within $1 million of that fundraising figure.
“I don’t know how they’re calculating that [$5 million],” a spokesperson for the FEC said. “I wouldn’t be able to speak on that because that’s not what I see [in our system].”
The mid-year report filed by the 2016 Committee lists its total contributions collected as nearly $2.49 million. The 2016 Committee grew out of the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, which made Carson the first candidate successfully drafted for president since 1964, when Barry Goldwater won the GOP nomination. The 2016 Committee’s chairman John Philip Sousa IV told the Washington Examiner he was not sure how his committee got to the $5 million number.
“I think the answer is we were the National Draft Ben Carson Committee and we terminated, we shut that organization down once Ben Carson announced his presidency and then we started the 2016 Committee,” Sousa said. “I think what you’re seeing is money that kept coming into the Draft Committee that we transferred over to the 2016 Committee, I think that’s the answer. But I can assure you that something over $5 million came into one or both of those political action committees.”
But the FEC recorded little more than $1.3 million in transfers from the Draft Committee to the 2016 Committee, and a FEC spokesperson said it did not appear as though the Draft Committee had ceased operation. When you combine the amount transferred by the Draft Committee and the amount raised by the 2016 Committee, the resulting number is slightly more than $3.8 million — or more than 20 percent less than the total figure the group originally touted.
When confronted with such information Sousa replied, “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding … I honestly don’t know [the reason for the error] and I don’t want to B.S. you.”
Brad Williamson, a senior account executive at the Pinkston Group that provides public relations services for the 2016 Committee, distributed the $5 million figure in an email. He said he received notice from the committee of the $5 million number before the super PAC filed with the FEC.
Williamson said the $5 million figure came from combining the total contributions collected by the two super PACs, the 2016 Committee and the Draft Committee, according to their separate mid-year reports filed with the FEC. While they both operate as individual entities, Williamson said the Draft Committee will be phased out and that it is affiliated with the 2016 Committee. The 2016 Committee’s original release does not explain that it has counted another super PACs contributions as its own.
Campaigns and press often speak of candidates’ fundraising totals as a combination of the money collected by the campaigns and each of the candidate-aligned super PACs. But in this case, one super PAC appears to have taken credit for the total contributions of another super PAC without disclosing it had done so.
A closer look at the super PACs supporting Carson shows more unwelcome news for Carson supporters.
The super PAC that has received the unofficial sanction of the Carson campaign, titled One Vote, reported just $100,000 in total contributions collected since its creation in March 2015, according to paperwork filed with the FEC. The 2016 Committee by comparison has existed since October 2014, according to the first Statement of Organization it filed with the FEC.
But some good news remains for the super PACs supporting Carson. The 2016 Committee claims to have 23,000 volunteers across the country and offices open in Iowa and New Hampshire with activists readying to canvass for Carson.
Meanwhile, the candidate has fared much better than the super PACs. The retired neurosurgeon will take the primetime debate stage on Fox News opposite nine other major candidates polling best in recent nationwide surveys selected by the cable television station.
