Newt Gingrich is a self-avowed fiscal conservative and deficit hawk. But his 2012 presidential campaign committee is still swimming in debt.

• Gingrich’s latest 2012 presidential campaign filing shows a debt of $4.63 million.
• No presidential campaign from any election cycle owes creditors more money, per federal records.
• Gingrich has been calling for a balanced federal budget, writing “open-ended spending encourages waste.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a self-styled fiscal conservative who calls for a balanced federal budget. He’s also actively helping Republicans win back the US House in 2022. 

But Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign committee, almost a decade past its expiration date, is still swimming in a sea of red.

The “Newt 2012” campaign committee remains technically active and more than $4.63 million in debt, according to financial filing submitted Saturday to the Federal Election Commission. No presidential campaign from any election cycle owes creditors more money.

The campaign had $747.28 in the bank as of December 31, the filing indicates.

Among those creditors are a host of political consultants, as well as Comcast, Twitter, FedEx and an organization run by the late Herman Cain, who also ran in the 2012 Republican presidential primary and died from COVID-19 in 2020. 

Newt 2012’s outstanding debt to Herman Cain Solutions, which has dissolved, is $16,525 for strategic consulting and travel.

Newt 2012 even owes Gingrich himself $649,117 for travel expenses.

Although Gingrich has made little effort to raise money to pay down his 2012 presidential campaign’s debts, he’s a frequent fundraising pitchman for other Republican committees.

“Our dreams of FIRING Lame Duck Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t come true unless you step up IMMEDIATELY and renew your membership,” Gingrich wrote January 26 in a fundraising email for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Gingrich could not be reached for comment on his campaign committee’s debt, which has remained effectively the same for almost a decade.

In 2012, a Gingrich spokesperson told Politico: “Our preference is obviously not to have gone into debt. If we could eliminate the debt overnight, we would. But realistically, this will take years.”

Gingrich, the leader of the 1994 “Republican Revolution” who then delivered a House majority for the GOP for the first time in 40 years, has been advising House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California as Republicans craft a 2022 midterm re-election strategy.

Earlier this month, Gingrich detailed in a blog post what he considered to be the country’s “real threats.” Among them: “The current system of open-ended spending encourages waste.”

Gingrich called for balancing the federal budget, saying it’s a “requirement for our long-term health as a country.”

“It will lower inflation, lower interest rates, lower the burden on our children and grandchildren, and rebuild our capacity to renew the world’s reserve currency with leverage over China, Russia, and others,” he wrote.

At least one other also-ran presidential candidate on Saturday reported some surplus cash from a long-dormant political committee: Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2000 and 2006 US Senate campaign committee still has $22,343 on its balance sheet as of December 31, FEC records show. 

Beyond doing nothing, Clinton’s committee could donate the money to charity, give it to another political committee, or disgorge it to the US Treasury.

Gingrich and Clinton have long been political foes. In 1995, Gingrich’s mother revealed to journalist Connie Chung in a controversial TV interview that her son told her Clinton was a “bitch.”