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Trump’s FEC Filings
Donald Trump’s May FEC filings were released yesterday evening and they do not paint a pretty picture. Trump entered June with $1.3 million in cash-on-hand. That’s fairly typical… for a semi-competitive congressional race. Over on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton had $42 million going into June. In May, Trump’s campaign spent $6.7 million. About 20 percent of this spending was payments to firms he owns and covering his children’s travel expenses. Looking forward, Clinton’s campaign has reserved $117 million in ad buys between tomorrow and Election Day on television, while Trump and his groups have reserved $700,000. It’ll be hard for the RNC to cover the gap, as:
…the RNC had only about $20 million cash-on-hand at the end of the month — $40 million less than the RNC did as of May 2012, when Mitt Romney, a prolific fundraiser, was topping the ticket. And it raised about $20 million less in May 2016 as it did in May 2012.
Trump’s not doing as much fundraising for the RNC as Romney did. As an example, once securing the nomination he apparently promised to call 20 big donors for the RNC, but only called three before moving on to other activities.
Also of note, the FEC filings also disclose $35,000 in payments to an ad agency called “Draper Sterling” (found on page 1,268 of the filing). It is unclear if this is a real ad agency, as it is “located” in suburban New Hampshire, and the name seems to be a homage to Mad Men.
As for fundraising in June, Saturday Trump threatened to go back to self-funding his campaign, which is an odd threat given that it was previously seen as a promise and selling point. He also sent out his first “$100,000 emergency” email plea this weekend.
It’s unclear if Trump do any fundraising while he’s in Scotland later this week, or any campaigning generally. The stated purpose of the trip is to open a golf course and resort.
His campaign staff consists of around 69 employees (down by two yesterday, including Lewandowski). In contrast, Clinton has about 700 on staff. While he will probably grow his staff size going forward, his lack of a voter data team is a conscious decision, not just something he’s behind on.
If Trump were beating Clinton in the polls, Trump’s success would make Clinton’s billion-dollar operation look ridiculous. But as he’s currently down by six points, his sparse operation looks less than reassuring to those hoping he’ll win. While it’s impressive he’s so close despite complete lack of a traditional “campaign infrastructure”, his supporters and down-ballot Republicans probably wish he would be a little more traditional in this department.
(Update: The original post misstated the number of employees Trump has; it has been corrected by the author).
Published in General
He’s going to Scotland? Why? It can’t be to campaign. Will they even have him? The Scott’s re terrible leftist. Will he meet with the Tories?
But trump is a leftist, by a different name. Of course the Scotts will welcome him…. he fights.
There is a reason why Corey Lewandowski is out. There is a reason why there are grumblings about unbinding the delegates.
So he can Brexit?
I knew his fund raising was not up to speed yet, but I had no idea it was this far behind Hillary Clinton.
I’ve always thought he would kick his fund raising into high gear once the primaries were over, that he had a plan to do so, even though most reporters saw no evidence of such a plan. But it has been a few weeks now, and he is still way behind in fund raising.
The biggest problem Trump has is psychological. The voters are bored now, and he will find it hard to get their ear.
All those years that the Yankees defeated the Red Sox for the pennant garnered a lot of attention for Major League Baseball.
The television networks saw the largest viewing audience ever in its history when the Red Sox and Yankees played their last games against each other, with the Red Sox winning. The networks assumed that those viewers would continue to watch the World Series two weeks later. Surprise, surprise. The ratings for the World Series tanked that year. The moral of the story, to me, was that the attractive conflict was the Red Sox and Yankees.
The primaries were fun for the press, thanks to Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Now that they have been decided, I predict a dramatic drop in the press’s interest in Trump or Clinton. Clinton can buy press now, and Trump can’t afford to buy it. It definitely gives Clinton the advantage.
B-b-bu-but he’s going to hire the best people. Uh…someday…when it’s important.
You seem to forget that he has no reason to “hire the best people”, after all he is great, no, the best at everything he does. He is a fighter. He doesn’t need those loser political staffers.
Thanks for the work, Lazy Millennial. Credit to your generation & all that.
https://www.sos.nh.gov/corporate/soskb/Corp.asp?1289960
Note the entity creation date: 3/25/2016. A little odd.
There is also a Draper Sterling LLC registered in Delaware in late 2015. “Filing Status: Unknown.” Also a little odd.
POST EDITED: I originally stated Trump had around 30 staff members. That is incorrect- according to his latest FEC filings he had 69 at the end of May.
The original purpose of the trip was to open a golf course. No idea what else, if anything, has been added on.
I’m sure Twitter has been all over this, but:
Here is the building at the listed address for Draper Sterling. It is a SFH, purchased for 450K in August of 2015. 4 beds, 4 baths, and a lavish 4300 sq ft.
Spokeo claims there are 3 current residents at that address: C. Mulligan (age: 50’s); S. Nicholaou (age: 80’s); and A. Evans (age: 30’s). There were also several Evanses who lived there previously.
It looks like a residential area. Londonderry’s zoning code allows live-work units in commercially-zoned areas, but I can’t find evidence that they allow commercial or live-work units in residential areas. Maybe Max or other NH residents know more about this.
Online snooping is a little too much fun.
I think we have reached a point where the people who do the voting and the people who do the paying are in 2 different places and may not have reconcilable differences.
Same entity
note the NH record says “DE”
common for tax purposes
Why do they have different entity creation dates, then? I don’t know much about it; is that also common?
By the way, the DE entity also did some work* for Patriots for America PAC, a super PAC which is apparently wholly dedicated to defeating MO gubernatorial candidate Eric Greitens. No clue if that is relevant to anything. Just more weirdness.
*H/t: Missouri Scout
Something, something amazing businessman, something something something FIGHTS!!
The DE date is the date of creation.
The NH date is the date the DE entity registered to do business in NH.
That is extremely common. When you file for incorporation in a different state varies for a number of reasons.
Ah. Thanks.
Trump doesn’t want to be president. He is a con man. Its been one big ego trip. He is laughing at all the Trumpters.
I still suspect that this was his deal with Bill. And it is Bill’s best ever gift to Hillary.
This is a point that has been made elsewhere, but if the usual Big Republican Donors aren’t giving to Trump, that’s a billion dollars they could be spending elsewhere. Where would you suggest they invest for the health of the Republic?
Space X, so we can ditch this rock.
More info on the house at 18 Crosby Lane can be found here.
The owners listed here do not match the residents listed by Spokeo.
That’s really an excellent question which is the stuff of a member feed worthy post if someone wants to undertake that.
My premise would be that we’re in a post-constitutional era where the republic has been lost. How do you get that back? To the extent that spending money can facilitate that process, where should that money go?
To the editor who decided this was main-feed worthy and, more importantly, cleaned it up before promoting it, THANK YOU.
I’ve had a couple things promoted recently and they do a fine job of making my stuff seem like it was written by a literate human being.
Very interesting.
The sparse operation, the meager fundraising, the lack of ad buys… so what does it all add up to?
Pure arrogance? Is he that confident he can simply do this “his way”? Inexperience? He has never done anything akin to running a presidential campaign, are we seeing that lack of experience show up now?
I keep coming back to this question: Is this the kind of behavior one would see in someone intentionally trying to throw the election?