Debbie Wasserman Schultz nets more than $230K for her re-election campaign

Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz added more than $230,000 to her campaign funds for defending her seat representing Florida’s 23^rd Congressional District.

That sum means that the nine-term Congresswoman’s campaign war chest is creeping up to nearly $1 million cash on hand, despite spending $203,610 in the last three months of the year.

Wasserman Schultz’s contributors run the gamut, with progressive groups, industries and unions making an appearance on the donor list. Notable names contributing to Wasserman Schultz’s campaign include former state Sen. Eleanor Sobel who gave $500; Nancy Adelson, deputy general counsel at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, who gave $2,900; Stuart Miller of Miami, executive chairman of Lennar, a homebuilder, who gave $5,800. Heather Podesta, Washington “superlobbyist” and former sister-in-law of Clinton chief of staff, John Podesta, gave $1,000.

Individual contributors giving the maximum $5,800 donation were Gayle Conway, a Belvedere, California, homemaker; Ronald Conway, a Belvedere, California, investor; Constance Williams, a Haverford, Pennsylvania, resident; Judith Gibbons, Setauket, New York, resident; Todd Michaels, a Coral Gables lawyer; Patricia Kessler of Palm Beach, a trustee of the Kessler Family Foundation; Cheryl Peisach of Golden Beach, a manager of an online flower delivery service; and Robert Rubenstein, a Miami lawyer.

The Wasserman Schultz campaign received $5,000 checks from the political arm of Comcast Corp., based in Philadelphia; the International Association of Firefighters, based in Washington; International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, based in Washington; Machinists Non-Partisan Political League, based in Upper Marlboro, Maryland; the Progressive Turnout Project in Chicago; and Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America.

Among the campaign’s 253 transactions over the last months of 2021, records show the campaign’s biggest check was paid to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which received $50,000.

Meanwhile, Wasserman Schultz’s closest competitor, Republican Carla Spalding, raised just a little more than half of what she collected the previous quarter: $166,727. Spalding’s reports seem to point to a slowdown in fundraising. The campaign has $62,318 cash on hand and owes $25,095 after collecting $310,255 in the previous quarter.

Spalding’s donor list points to a grassroots campaign. Of the 402 itemized, individual donations during the last quarter, just six gave $1,000 or more. Those donors are Fausto Diaz, a Coral Gables retiree who gave $1,000; Thomas Murphy, a Boca Raton retiree, who gave $1,000; Gerald Norman, a Los Angeles retiree, who gave $1,000; Jeffrey Steinkamp, a Rochester, Vermont, retiree, who gave $2,800; Carolyn Rayner, a Chesterfield, Missouri, retiree, who gave $2,800; Benjamin Hudson Jr., an Erwin, North Carolina, retiree, who gave $2,800.

This year is likely to be a rematch between Spalding and Wasserman Schultz. The Congresswoman beat the former U.S. Navy veteran and Veterans Administration nurse by 16 percentage points in 2020. Wasserman Schultz has secured at least 56% of the vote each of the last four cycles. But it’s unclear how redistricting will affect the makeup of CD 23, which currently covers parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties, including Weston, Davie, Cooper City and Surfside.

Republican Rubin Young is a distant third in the fundraising race. He collected $7,279 in the last quarter and has $1,305 in cash to spend.