Charles Booker’s US Senate campaign still in six-figure debt almost 2 years later
Almost two years after falling short in a race for the U.S. Senate, former Democratic candidate Charles Booker’s campaign still owes vendors more than $100,000.
According to a quarterly report submitted mid-July to the Federal Elections Commission, Booker’s campaign was almost $130,000 in debt as of July 1. The majority of that debt is for services rendered during the former state representative’s longshot 2022 run against Republican Sen. Rand Paul.
The former campaign manager on Booker’s team told the Herald-Leader they are committed to retiring the campaign’s debt despite the amount hovering around the same mark for nearly two years.
The campaign raised more than $6.5 million by the end of 2022, but debts are still owed to vendors including consulting firms, analytics companies, design firms and website providers, according to the FEC report.
The debt has lingered from the campaign’s final moments. At the end of 2022, after a nearly 24-point loss to Paul, the campaign owed vendors about $122,000. It’s since paid off more than $30,000 of that original debt, but more has popped up since then, increasing the total to nearly $130,000.
Such outstanding debt for a losing campaign is rare in both state and national politics. According to available FEC records, only three of the 19 Democrats who ran for Senate in 2022 were in debt as of their last reports, and both owed much less than Booker’s campaign.
Booker’s former campaign manager, Bianca Keaton, emphasized that Booker ran a campaign centered around grassroots activism and “small-dollar” donations, and that retiring the debt is “an absolute priority.”
“Charles Booker’s Senate run inspired so many people across Kentucky and the country because he ran a truly grassroots, people centered campaign fueled by small dollar support. While an outstanding debt must still be resolved, Charles is committed to making sure every vendor is fully paid. Retiring this debt is an absolute priority,” Keaton wrote in an email to the Herald-Leader.
The campaign has been taking in some donations — since Jan. 1, 2023, they’ve received about $125,000 in contributions — but that hasn’t been enough to put a dent in the debt given the costs of fundraising and keeping the account and its related websites open, according to Federal Elections Commission records.
One vendor based in Louisville said they have been in constant contact with Booker himself about the $38,000 the campaign owes them.
Tarik Nally, CEO of the design firm Kale & Flax, said that he believes in Booker and his political message and has supported the Louisville politician since he first started to run for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s seat in 2019 — “before all the outside consultants started knocking on the campaign’s door,” he noted.
During that race, Booker fell short in the primary to well-funded candidate Amy McGrath, but garnered serious momentum and attention at the end that he attempted to parlay into 2022.
Nally said he’s been in contact with Booker about the unpaid voices over the past year.
“I know if it was up to Charles, there wouldn’t have been a single debt remaining. But in the heat of competing in a race that would have transformed Kentucky, as a business owner you’ve got to expect ‘the unknown’ at any point in time. I believe we made a difference in Booker’s trajectory before the world caught on, and I know working beside him over the years made a difference in our business’ growth and impact — both nationally and internationally,” Nally wrote in an email to the Herald-Leader.
Other companies yet to be paid by the Booker campaign for services rendered during the campaign include Grassroots Analytics in Vermont and the political consulting firms Batrice & Associates in Texas and Washington-based Precision Strategies.
Trey Grayson, a former Kentucky secretary of state, is familiar with campaigns for U.S. Senate. Like Booker, he also lost to Rand Paul — except he got beat in the Republican primary in 2010 when he and Paul were vying for an open seat.
He called the amount of outstanding debt “highly unusual,” adding that the most common way debt lingers for campaigns is the case of wealthy candidates “loaning” themselves money and not really expecting to get paid back, as opposed to vendors who expect to be paid for their work.
Such was the case for one of the other three Democrats who still has unpaid debt from a 2022 Senate run. Tech entrepreneur Madison Horn, of Oklahoma, loaned her campaign $20,000 and still owes that repayment.
Grayson, who spent time running the Harvard Institute on Politics and is now a lobbyist, said the onus of paying the bills doesn’t generally fall on the candidate.
“As a candidate, you’re busy being a candidate and you’re not necessarily paying attention to things like this. When I ran, staff were the ones to pay the bills. It’s not clear, necessarily, whose to blame here on letting things get out of control,” Grayson said.
Booker, 39, now leads Kentucky’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives and Community Involvement. He previously founded, held a leadership role and took a salary from a political nonprofit based on his first campaign’s slogan, “from the hood to the Holler.”
That nonprofit is still active, but according to its most recent available filing to the Internal Revenue Service, Booker is no longer on its payroll or in an official leadership position.
This story was originally published September 3, 2024 at 12:44 PM.
