Finance · Every dollar, on the record
Every dollar in. Every dollar out. Published.
Most campaigns treat their finances like a state secret until the FEC report drops and a reporter has to dig through 200 pages of PDF. We’re doing the opposite. Every donation in, every check out, posted on this page in something close to real time. You can see where the money came from. You can see where it went.
If I’m asking you to fund this thing, the least I can do is show you exactly what I’m spending it on.
Why this page exists
Because the thing I’m running against is exactly what most campaigns do with their money.
Plank 05 of the pledge is no corporate PAC money, no Super PAC support, no dark money. Plank 06 is build the bench and hand off the seat. None of that means anything if I run a campaign that looks like every other campaign behind the scenes - million-dollar consultant retainers, $40,000 dinners that nobody can explain, vendor invoices that say “strategic services” and nothing else.
So I’m doing the part most candidates skip. The full ledger gets published here. Every donation, every expense, with the actual line item description. Not “strategic services.” Not “consulting.” The actual thing the money paid for.
If you find something on this page that looks wrong, tell me. The whole point is that you can.
The live ledger
This is where the running totals will live - in, out, by week, by category.
The ledger goes live the moment two things are true. One, the campaign bank account is open and the first transactions have cleared. Two, the FEC reporting workflow with my treasurer is set up so the public ledger and the official filing match exactly. I am not posting numbers I haven’t verified.
What you’ll see when it’s live - a running total of money in, a running total of money out, the same numbers broken down by week and by category (payroll, travel, rent, materials, ads, compliance), and the full transaction list with date, amount, and what it paid for.
Refresh this page. It’ll update as the data comes in.
Ledger goes live after the bank account opens and the first FEC reporting cycle closes. Expected mid-to-late June 2026.
What the campaign pays for
These are the things the campaign budget covers, because they only exist because of the campaign.
The FEC has a specific test for what counts as a legitimate campaign expense versus personal use. It’s called the “irrespective test” - would this expense exist if the candidate were not running. If the answer is no, the campaign covers it. Everything else is on me.
What the campaign pays for - my phone bill and internet when used for campaign work, software and subscriptions used for campaign work, meals while I’m actively out campaigning, the rental travel trailer that doubles as the mobile organizing office across 17 counties, gas and mileage when traveling for the campaign, parking and RV hookups during county trips, the Memphis headquarters at Crosstown Concourse, signage and printing and materials, the website hosting and email platform, social media graphics and video production, digital ad buys, local radio and print in rural counties, FEC compliance and finance attorney fees, payroll for the campaign manager and treasurer, voter file access, polling, phone bank software, and event costs.
That’s it. That’s the list.
The budget
The primary runs May through August. Here’s what we’re budgeting for it.
Core budget is $80,000 to $100,000. That’s the minimum viable spend to actually contest this district - the campaign manager, the treasurer, the trailer rental, the Memphis HQ, gas and parking for county trips, materials and signs, the website, email, basic digital ads, local radio and print, compliance, insurance, voter file access, basic polling, phone bank software, event costs, and contingency.
Stretch goals only activate on funds raised beyond the core. If we raise more, the stretch is real TV and radio ad buys, professional district-wide polling, larger events with production value, direct mail in the key rural counties, additional paid field staff per county, and bigger digital spend.
The full line-item breakdown gets posted to the live ledger once it goes live. The principle - core spend gets locked first, stretch spend gets unlocked by actual money in the bank. No champagne plans on beer money.
About my writing income
For people who’ve been supporting RATC - thank you, and here’s what already changed.
The Substack, the tip jars, and the Facebook subscriptions were all personal writing income, separate from the campaign. Once I filed, I shut off the parts that could get confused for campaign contributions. PayPal is off. Venmo is off. New Substack subscriptions are off. New Facebook subscriptions are off. Anyone who was already supporting RATC keeps what they had - no refunds, no terminations - but no new money comes in through those channels.
What I’m keeping is the Facebook engagement revenue I earn as a digital creator. That’s the platform paying me a share based on how much my content gets watched and engaged with, and it reads as royalty-style platform income, not a reader-to-candidate contribution. I’ve never run ads on anything I’ve written, so there are no ad revenue questions to address.
Before I finalize how any of this gets accounted for, I’m sitting down with a campaign finance attorney to document the rationale in writing. The memo will be on this page when it’s done.
Want to fund this?
The donate page handles the actual contribution. Every dollar that comes in shows up on the ledger above, with the date, the amount, and the donor disclosure required by the FEC.