Trump campaign still owes Coastal; Winthrop tab paid in full, public records show

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump gestures to members of the audience as he leaves a Get Out The Vote rally at Coastal Carolina University on February 10, 2024, in Conway, South Carolina. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Hosting a president — or a former president — gets pricey, as cities and colleges across South Carolina can attest, and one public university is still waiting for the Trump campaign to settle up, according to public records provided this week to the SC Daily Gazette.

Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump visited South Carolina to rally support ahead of the Democratic Party’s first recognized presidential primary in 2024 and the first-in-the-South Republican primary.

The Gazette sought public records for what both campaigns potentially cost taxpayers. Between the two candidates, only the Biden campaign provided no reimbursements for a visit in the weeks before the party primaries.

Records provided by Winthrop University for Trump’s Feb. 23 rally there the night before he won South Carolina’s GOP primary show his campaign was charged $57,300 for that event, and it was paid in full by March 4.

Coastal Carolina rally

However, according to the most recent records provided by Coastal Carolina University, the Trump campaign has not yet paid the college in Conway an outstanding balance of $37,410 related to a Feb. 10 rally on its campus.

The Trump campaign has not responded to the Gazette’s questions about the tab.

Before the rally, the university gave the campaign a cost estimate of $47,633. And the Trump campaign paid half ($23,817) as a deposit. After the event, Coastal Carolina calculated the actual total cost as $61,226, leaving the $37,410 balance, according to a document obtained through a public records request.

“As of May 15, 2024, the balance due has not been paid,” a university spokesperson said in an email Thursday to the Gazette.

The bulk of the total, at just over $51,000, was classified as labor costs, which included $28,360 for city and campus police, as well as almost $4,300 for meals and $5,000 for clean-up. A two-day rental of the student recreation center and a parking lot accounted for another $5,000. The college charged $5,100 for what’s dubbed “resources,” including use of tables, chairs, barricades, tents, arena floor covering, digital message boards and internet access.

Winthrop rally

Winthrop University has invited presidential candidates to the campus in Rock Hill for a decade. And for each event, the university waives the usual facility rental fee, said Winthrop spokeswoman Judy Longshaw.

For the Trump event, the college was willing to waive the entire two-day rental cost for the university coliseum, which ordinarily would be $23,000. But the campaign wanted to pay something, so the school charged $500, she said.

Personnel accounted for nearly all of Winthrop’s bill: $51,700 for officers, emergency responders, coliseum and custodial staff, EPI security, athletics staff for six hours of setup and teardown, a groundskeeper, and even an on-site plumber and electrician. Other fees included a golf cart rental.

Winthrop hosted other candidates this campaign season too. But Trump’s event was by far the biggest, as it attracted 5,000 people, and the former president required more security, according to additional receipts Winthrop provided the Gazette in March.

An event held by businessman Vivek Ramaswamy on Oct. 9, before he dropped out of the Republican race, cost $1,730. A visit by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Sept 10 — when was still running as a Democrat — cost $1,542. Longshot Democratic candidate Marianne Williamson visited Dec. 4, which cost just $218. All three candidates paid those bills, which show none were charged for facility rental.

Trump also held a rally in North Charleston at a venue owned by the city. But the city did not respond to the Gazette within the deadlines set by South Carolina public records law.

The Gazette has previously reported that a brief visit by Trump to November’s Palmetto Bowl rivalry football game between the Gamecocks and Tigers — when he walked on the field at Williams-Brice Stadium at halftime — added roughly $17,000 in security costs. Trump was an invited guest of Gov. Henry McMaster.

Biden visits

On the Democratic side, Biden held a one-day event in Charleston and spent the night in Columbia following a state Democratic Party dinner.

That two-day visit to Columbia cost the city about $88,000 in unreimbursed expenses, according to prior reporting in the SC Daily Gazette.

Charleston, on the other hand, was not counting.

“In regards to President Joe Biden’s visit to the City of Charleston on January 8, 2024, the City may have incurred some overtime expenditures for this operation given its scope and size,” according to a formal response to the Daily Gazette. “However, the City did not track any additional resources on our payroll.”

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