Republican governor candidate Scott Wagner, who routinely touts his business savvy on the campaign trail, took the unusual step of investing his own donations to his campaign in a brokerage fund, posting a more than $600,000 loss in his most recent campaign finance report.
The investment practice became public Wednesday after Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia elections lawyer with ties to Democrats, posted screen captures of Wagner's most recent campaign finance report to his Twitter feed.
"How can Pennsylvanians trust him with their own money?" Bonin asked.
The revelation raised eyebrows among political observers, who said they could not recall a candidate investing campaign money into the stock market. They also marveled that Wagner had managed to lose money in a booming market.
Usually, campaigns like easy access to money and tend to keep their funds liquid.
"Because it's so difficult to raise money, you don't want to risk principal," veteran Democratic fund-raiser Aubrey Montgomery told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "More commonly, you'll see campaigns move money into a short-term savings account that has very small returns, a couple percentage points or less."
Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for Wagner's campaign, said the York County Republican had "only invested his own campaign contributions in the brokerage account."
"No donor money was used in that account and the account has actually netted hundreds of thousands in increases throughout the campaign," Romeo said.
A veteran Republican consultant contested that explanation, arguing that campaign funds are "fungible," and that personal infusions and donations are difficult to separate once they are commingled in a campaign account.
Wagner has routinely posted gains and losses from the brokerage fund in his campaign filings, according to data obtained by PennLive.
In March, for instance, Wagner reported reported $1.5 million In receipts from an increase in the value of excess campaign funds invested in his brokerage account.
A month later, Wagner reported a $1.4 million decrease in value of those same funds from his brokerage account, campaign filings indicated:
While it's unusual, there's nothing illegal about the practice, Wagner's campaign said, pointing to verification by the Pennsylvania Department of State, The Post-Gazette further reported.
Romeo defended the investments in an emailed request for comment.
"Scott has made a profit of over $800,000 in the brokerage account during the course of the campaign," he said. "Harrisburg's money managers can actually learn a thing or two from Scott about how to grow money in the stock market."