Cruz’s High Spending Rate Intensifies His Need To Find New Donors

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is burning through money nearly as fast as he is raising it, intensifying the pressure on his campaign to expand its donor base.

As he makes a final, urgent push to close the gap with GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, Cruz has kept up a frenetic spending pace. In March, he raced through $11.8 million out of the $12.5 million that his campaign collected — a burn rate of 94 percent, new Federal Election Commission filings show. He headed into April and the expensive New York primary with $8.8 million in the bank.

More than half the money Cruz spent last month — $6.6 million — went to ads. But his campaign also plowed resources into trying to cultivate new donors, shelling out more than $376,000 on list rentals and fundraising phone calls.

That’s because the senator from Texas has struggled to consolidate the Republican donor base, even as he has emerged as the last main rival to Trump. In March, when Sen. Marco Rubio ceded the fight and dropped out, Cruz raised just $700,000 more than he did in February, when the field was still crowded.

Supporters said the giving has picked up this month. On Monday, Cruz headlined a $1,000-a-head fundraiser at the Harvard Club in Manhattan that drew former Rubio backers and Wall Street executives.

“It was very well-attended and very crowded,” said Anthony Gioia, a Buffalo fundraiser who was a top bundler for George W. Bush and supported Rubio before he withdrew. Even after Cruz’s loss in New York Tuesday, “there is still a fair amount of optimism in the campaign,” he added.

Still, Gioia was not sure how much money he could help bring in for Cruz in the coming weeks.

“We just did so much for Marco, I don’t know how much is left,” he said.

That same challenge has hampered the pro-Cruz super PACs as they have solicited big checks. In March, four of the groups — Trusted Leadership PAC, Stand for Truth, Keep the Promise I and Keep the Promise III — together raised $8 million. Of that, $2 million came from Robert Mercer, who had previously given $11.5 million to the pro-Cruz effort. Another $1 million came from Chicago-based shipping magnate Richard Uihlein, who had already given $1 million.

New donors are coming over, though slowly, said Kellyanne Conway, a senior strategist for the super PAC network.

“The major challenge is still how absolutely exhausted and fatigued so many of these donors are because they gave early, often and generously,” she said. “There is a bit of, ‘Maybe I can help you with the convention. If you’re the nominee, I’ll be there.’ It’s that fatigue factor.”

Nevertheless, Conway said the super PACs had sufficient resources to run targeted campaigns in upcoming states such as Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon and California.

“I would rather see us go full-bore in states that are most hospitable to Cruz’s message and vision than play scattershot,” she said, “We’re looking at Indiana as a huge inflection point.”