ABC news
written by Elicia Dover
Tuesday April 10, 2012
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich may not appear on the ballot for the June 26 Utah primary, after a $500 check — the required filing fee — bounced, an official said.
State election director Mark Thomas told ABC News that a $500 check given by the Gingrich campaign to secure his place on the Utah ballot bounced on March 27.
“Our office immediately attempted to contact the campaign and the designated agent but no phone calls were returned,” Thomas said. “We also asked the state Republican Party to assist us, but they also could not get into communication with them, although I do not know how they attempted to contact them.”
One source close to the campaign told ABC News that the Gingrich campaign recently changed finance and accounting staff. The designated agent who filed the paperwork for the campaign was Wallace Woodruff “Woody” Hales, though Hales still works for the Gingrich campaign.
If the fee is not paid by April 20, Gingrich will be disqualified from the ballot.
“Our office certifies the candidates to the county clerks on April 24,” Thomas said.
The check bounce comes as no surprise as Gingrich confirmed a debt of almost $4.5 million to ABC News on Tuesday. The last Federal Election Commission report from February showed a debt of less than $2 million.
Gingrich told ABC News today that the debt increase was because the campaign got “very excited in Florida” after his South Carolina win.
“Romney spent $20 million in Florida in three weeks and I think some of our guys decided to try to match him and we didn’t have Wall Street,” Gingrich said. “I am going to spend some time paying it off. It is something I have done several times in my career.”
Gingrich said his campaign did “exactly what a conservative should do” who is in debt.
“We cut our expenses, we cut our staff, we are now in the process of paying it off but I think what happened is, they got really involved in the fight in Florida and didn’t stop and just say to themselves, ‘Wait a second.’ I can beat Mitt Romney in ideas, I can’t possibly compete with him in money,” Gingrich said.
On the day Rick Santorum suspended his campaign, Gingrich sent an email to supporters saying he was “the last conservative standing.” The campaign emailed to voters that the goal was to achieve 12,000 donations by midnight.
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Huffington Post
written by Sam Stein
Sunday April 10, 2012
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Newt Gingrich acknowledged on Sunday that his campaign was in fairly massive debt. But the former House Speaker continued to stress that he would remain in the race for purposes of driving the party, and its platform, in certain ideological directions.
Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Gingrich was asked about a report that his campaign had spent roughly $4.5 million more than it had raised.
"I think slightly less than that," he replied, declining to offer a more specific number. "We owe much more than we wanted to. Florida got to be a real brawl. And I think, unfortunately, our guys tried to match Romney and it turned out we didn't have anything like his capacity to raise money."
Gingrich admitted that he had to dip into his personal finances to help fund his campaign though he insisted that he had not spent much of his own money. He also acknowledged that he was campaigning heavily in Delaware because it was relatively inexpensive to do so.
"We are operating on a shoestring," he said.
Acknowledging that Romney would likely end up as the nominee, Gingrich pledged to help him once he reached the necessary number of delegates. In what capacity he would serve is unclear. The former Speaker said he would talk to RNC officials about how best to serve the party, post-primary. He added that there would be no lingering animus between him and the former Massachusetts Governor, despite the heated campaigning between the two.
"I hit him as hard as I could," said Gingrich. "He hit me as hard as he could. Turned out he had more things to hit with than I did."
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