DeSantis committee continues pulling in cash

August 6, 2019

NSF Staff

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political committee collected at least $340,000 in contributions in July and has reeled in at least $1.9 million this year, according to numbers posted online. State political committees and candidates face a Monday deadline for filing detailed financial reports with the Florida Department of State, but the Friends of Ron DeSantis political committee has posted contribution information on its website through July 24. A vast majority of the money raised this year by the committee came in the past three months, following the end of the 2019 legislative session. That includes $430,416 raised in May and $713,000 in June. In July, large contributions included $125,000 from Paul Tudor Jones, a money manager and co-founder of some of the Everglades Foundation; $50,000 from Amscot Corp., the state’s largest payday-loan company; $25,000 from the The Vestcor Companies, a Jacksonville-based real estate firm; and $25,000 from Jay Demetree Jr., president and CEO of Demetree Brothers, Inc., a Jacksonville-based real estate company. As of July 25, the committee had spent a little over $12,000 in July, with $8,750 going to HMB strategies for fundraising consulting, $1,599 on credit card fees and the rest on legal and accounting services, according to information posted on the website. Based on the website and the Department of State database, the governor’s committee had roughly $1.8 million in cash on hand heading into the final week of July.