Newt Gingrich offers bleak view of campaign finances

Newt Gingrich, whose presidential bid has been beset by problems including the resignation of nearly his entire campaign staff, said on Monday that his upcoming fundraising report will be bleak.

“The fact is a month of media barrage is painful, and it slowed a lot of things down,” he said, before marching in a Fourth of July parade in Clear Lake, Iowa. “Our numbers will not be as good as we would like, and candidly, the consultants left us in debt. But every single week since they left we’ve been cutting down the debt, and we raise more than we spend in a week.”

The second-quarter fundraising reports will be made public on July 15. The former House speaker said he expects the third quarter report to be “very healthy.”

Gingrich said he plans to spend 16 days in Iowa in July and August, including attending the Iowa State Fair with his two grandchildren. He said he is not taking part in the straw poll in Ames, or any other one, because of his lack of resources.

Gingrich said he still sees a path to the GOP nomination.

“My path has always been to see whether substance could outlast gossip and whether or not you could mobilize enough people . . . who decide that having a real solution and having real knowledge and having actually done it,” he said. “One of our themes will be, ‘We’ve done it before, we can do it again.”