Mounting debt threatens Mike Pence’s campaign

Former Vice President Mike Pence’s 2024 campaign faces a potentially existential cash squeeze, with debt already piling up.

The campaign told NBC News it will report having raised $3.3 million in the third quarter, with $1.2 million cash on hand and $620,000 in debt, when its campaign finance filing is due to be made public Sunday. Pence himself chipped in $150,000 from his personal funds, the campaign said.

Pence’s numbers reveal a campaign under serious strain, operating on completely different financial terrain from that of his rivals, and they raise questions about his ability to continue to compete in the GOP primaries. Racking up debt, in particular, has long been a sign of presidential campaigns in trouble — and potentially on the verge of ending.

The last GOP presidential primary season offers an ominous parallel from this moment eight years ago: Then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign reported just under $1 million in the bank and $161,000 in debt at the end of the third quarter of 2015, the equivalent moment in that election cycle. That’s when he dropped out of the race.

The next campaign finance report Walker’s suspended campaign filed made it clear how rapidly things could spiral. The report, covering the final three months of 2015, showed his campaign needed to deal with more than $1.2 million in debt. It took Walker a year to raise the money to retire the debt.

This year, Pence’s cash position compares unfavorably with those of rivals he once served with in Washington: Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s campaign has said it finished the third quarter with $9.1 million to spend on the 2024 primaries, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign announced it has banked $5 million. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina has been spending heavily, but he also came into his 2024 bid with a well-stocked federal campaign account built up over years in the Senate.

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, said it had nearly $36 million available to spend on the 2024 primaries. All of those figures are based on campaign announcements and cannot be independently verified until the campaigns file reports with the Federal Election Commission, which are due by the end of Sunday.