Party Chairman Gruters, Presiding Over More Debt Than Cash While the Other Party Sits on $128 Million, Announces He Is 'Not Going Anywhere'
Donors are fleeing, the committee took a loan, the rival committee has no debt at all, and the chairman says the party is raising more and winning more than ever — a claim the balance sheet declines to co-sign
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
WASHINGTON — National party chairman Gruters, facing calls from within his own party to step aside before the midterms, went on cable television to announce that he is not going anywhere, a statement that the party's finance reports suggest is true in more senses than he intended.
The committee he runs reported roughly $16 million in cash and $18 million in debt as of its latest filing, which is to say it is worth less than nothing and owns a building. The rival committee reported $128 million in cash and zero debt. The chairman's response was that under his leadership the party was raising more money than ever and winning more elections than ever, a formulation that is compatible with the numbers only if 'ever' is defined as a shorter period than usual.
The chairman has also been reported to have thrown a phone at an aide's desk, which his defenders characterize as passion and his critics characterize as a phone. A loan was taken earlier in the year when reserves ran low. Candidates in competitive races are reported to be raising money just fine, mostly by not routing it through him.
Supporters of Chairman Gruters said that changing chairmen ten weeks before an election is how parties lose elections. Opponents said that keeping this one is how they were already losing the fundraising. The Press's chairman desk notes that 'steady hand' and 'the problem' are distinguished only by which party's committee is in the red, and that the phrase 'big tent' is deployed by whichever tent currently has the fewest poles.
"We are united," the chairman said, of a party currently united chiefly in its opinion of him.
At press time the chairman's desk had been bolted to the floor with steel brackets, the committee's safe stood open behind it with the door ajar, and a single coin had been left inside for morale.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: DNC Chair Ken Martin, responding on CNN to critics who say he should resign before the midterms, said 'I'm not going anywhere' and that under his leadership the DNC is 'raising more money than ever before and winning more elections than ever before.' FEC filings showed the DNC with about $16 million in cash and $18 million in debt as of late June, while the RNC reported $128 million in cash and no debt; the DNC took out a $15 million loan earlier this year, and a New York Times report said Martin threw a phone at an aide's desk.