CommentsLGBTQ NATION - Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner, who is transgender, spent years living in front of a television camera as part of the Kardashian clan.
And after she launched her longshot campaign to become the next governor of California, she wasn’t able to resist the opportunity to appear on TV again.
While Jenner has abandoned her campaign for the Australian reality show, she also stopped fundraising. So now her campaign is going broke and, worst of all, voters don’t seem to mind that she left.
Jenner’s run in the recall election to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has been marred by constant gaffes from the politically inexperienced first-time candidate: she doesn’t seem to have an inkling about how out-of-touch her wealth has made her, she lied about not voting in the 2020 election when she actually did vote, and she has insulted anyone who might ever support her campaign, from rightwing podcasters to transgender voters.
Then she ran off to Australia.
Jenner tweeted that her campaign will continue even though she’ll be on the other side of the world: “I am honoring a work commitment that I had made prior to even deciding to run for governor. There is no pause at all on this race to save CA!”
“My campaign team is in full operation as am I. I am in this race to win for California, because it is worth fighting for.”
But Jenner will miss the upcoming high-stakes California GOP gubernatorial debate as her campaign piles up debt.
Since she launched her campaign, Jenner has only raised $747,000 while she’s spent $910,000. Reports show that the campaign is over $150,000 in debt and has about $21,000 in the bank.
Most of the money has gone to pay a Republican fundraising service, former head of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign Brad Parscale, and Ari Fleischer, former President George W. Bush’s press secretary. While she was proud to announce that big-name Republican strategists were part of her campaign back in April, she apparently hasn’t succeeded in earning the money needed to pay them.
Gov. Newsom, on the other hand, has raised over $40 million to fight off the recall.
“The campaign will be fully funded to enter the final stretch of the election with the necessary resources to end Gavin Newsom’s time as governor,” Jenner’s campaign spokesperson told Politico.
She has consistently polled poorly with California voters. As of last week, she was tied for fifth place among GOP contenders with three percent support.
(Bil Browning is the Editor-in-Chief of LGBTQ Nation. His personal papers and LGBT activism memorabilia are included in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History archives)
