Trump Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt's Failed Political Goals Left Her With Major Money Problems

Donald Trump became something of an overnight success in the realm of politics, but many of his employees can't say the same. Karoline Leavitt, on the other hand, was chosen as the national press secretary for Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, which is an impressive accomplishment for someone who hadn't even graduated college when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. However, in between her work for his administration in his first term and her return to Trump's inner circle for this campaign season, Leavitt tried and failed to venture out into her own political career.

In 2022, Leavitt ran for a seat in the House of Representatives, seeking to become the Congressperson for District 1 in New Hampshire. She wound up losing to her Democratic competitor, Chris Pappas, who won 54% of the vote against Leavitt's 45.9%. Clearly, her career has already recovered from the setback, but her wallet has not, as she's still paying the price for her political campaign — literally.

In an examination of Federal Election Committee filings from Karoline For Congress (Leavitt's campaign committee), Raw Story discovered that Leavitt's campaign was still burdened with $105,605.21 in debt. The FEC filings, which cover the period from April 1, 2024 to June 30, 2024, revealed that the organization currently has $12,816.80 cash on hand, an amount that would obviously barely make a dent in what's owed.

Seeking out this particular congressional seat was undoubtedly a risk for Leavitt, as it's a fairly purple district that certainly doesn't exclusively or consistently vote for Republican candidates. Beyond that, the Republican primary that she ran in was a fairly crowded field that didn't offer her a blowout victory. Per Ballotpedia, she won the nomination with 34.4% of the vote, while her closest competitor, Matt Mowers, earned 25.3%. Leavitt's success is undoubtedly impressive given that it was her first run and she was only 25 years old at the time, but sinking hundreds of thousands of dollars into political promotion may not have been a worthwhile investment.

This kind of a loss can be a crushing blow to any aspiring politician, but Leavitt clearly hasn't slowed down since losing her congressional bid in 2022. Leavitt only graduated from Saint Anselm College in 2019, and in the period since, she has already worked as the Trump campaign's 2024 national press secretary, as an assistant press secretary at the White House during Trump's first term, and as the communications director for New York Representative Elise Stefanik. And she managed to squeeze her own congressional run in too.

Perhaps she still has her own career as a politician ahead of her, but as of now, Karoline Leavitt looks to be all-in on the Donald Trump brand. She goes hard in her defense of the former president, and although gaffes like Leavitt's CNN outburst might be embarrassing to some, her aggressive, over-the-top attitude could be just what Trump is looking for. So, even if her campaign debt is sky-high, at least she may have some job security (presuming that the notoriously tight-fisted real estate mogul actually pays her, anyway).