Sheesh…
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has been in strong shape for re-election all cycle, and he continued his dominance by widely outraising his Republican challenger, state Sen. Scott Wagner, over the last several months. But the most amazing detail to come out of the candidates’ new financial reports is the fact, uncovered by Daily Kos contributing editor Adam Bonin, that Wagner reported losing $631,000 in campaign funds between June 5 and Sept. 17 thanks to unsuccessful investments in a brokerage account.
As Bonin notes, it’s astoundingly irresponsible to invest donor money, as Wagner’s huge losses show. In fact, an earlier report saw Wagner’s investments drop by astounding $1.5 million, though in other periods, he’s seen gains—but that’s exactly the point: The extreme volatility of investing in securities poses a huge risk to funds that contributors are entrusting to you. What’s more, the stock market has made solid gains this year (the S&P 500 is up over 9 percent in 2018), so how in the hell did Wagner manage to lose so much money while most investors were doing well?