Senator Heidi Heitkamp’s Campaign Not Saying if Staff Benefited From the Trump Tax Cuts She Voted Against

In my Sunday print column I mentioned something I want to expand on a bit here on the blog.

“Even Heitkamp’s own campaign staff appears to be enjoying the tax reductions,” I wrote after noting that Senator Heidi Heitkamp voted against the Trump tax cuts. “Federal disclosure reports show several of her staffers enjoyed slight bumps in their pay after the tax reform’s passage in keeping with lower rates of tax withholding.”

Here’s what I was writing about.

Julia Krieger, communications director for Heitkamp’s campaign, took home $2,613 for the last pay period of 2017 according to the campaign’s year-end report. She got the same amount for her first pay day in January of 2018, but by the time her second pay day of 2018 rolled around she saw a $127 boost:

Anna Moffett, who is the finance director for Heitkamp’s campaign, received $2,922.89 for her final pay check in 2017 but got $112 per pay check in 2018:

Sean Higgins, press secretary for the Heitkamp campaign, made $1,995.52 per check in the final pay period of 2017, but in 2018 saw his pay jump $71 per check:

I sent the Heitkamp campaign an inquiry five days ago about these pay increases. Did the employees get raises? Or did they benefit from the Trump tax cuts?

The campaign is silent on the question.

It sure looks like the latter to me, which is an interesting development. Again, Senator Heitkamp voted against the Trump tax cuts. She’s campaigning on that vote (her fellow Democrat, U.S. House candidate Mac Schneider, has said he would have voted no too). Yet her campaign staff, like many Americans (North Dakotans more so than any other group in the nation), is apparently benefiting directly from the tax cuts in the form of bigger pay checks.