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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
Your assertion about the incredible incompetence of Trump would hold more weight if only he hadn’t managed to defeat the entire field of supposedly better GOP candidates- but I will retire for the night with the wish that Trump will somehow display the political ability to win you and others over to his side.
Good night to you as well.
Whether Trump made false promises about self-funding and whether he is lying about the extent of his wealth are germane to the question of who should be president.
If Hillary Clinton’s lies and other misdeeds are relevant, so are Trump’s. You can argue about which is worse, and whose negatives outweigh the other’s, but I don’t see why it’s not appropriate to discuss them all.
There is a lot of question begging going on. One cannot win the argument of whether Trump or Clinton should be president by assuming it should be Trump and then suggesting that all statements to the contrary are by definition irrelevant.
No, we don’t want him to win, and we’re going to keep explaining why, because people like you keep encouraging us to both vote for the man and donate to him.
As long as you keep encouraging us to vote and donate to him, you get to hear it.
Nah.
Gotta love the smear of globalism applied to #NeverTrumpers. The fact that you think it applies to us belies your lack of understanding about why many conservatives, despite sympathizing with many of Trump’s explainer’s positions, cannot support the man.
I suppose.
But as a Trump supporter none of these questions matter to me.
I always assumed Trump would have to raise funds from other people once he became the nominee, and it doesn’t trouble me any more than it concerned me when Mitt Romney did it.
Ymmv.
But I must say that I am amazed at how concerned some folks are about Trump’s supposed misstatements when they have little trouble accepting Hillary Clinton as a candidate.
It seems to me that her endless crimes are much more of a disqualifying conjcern than anything Trump has done, but again- ymmv.
Since you recognize that he needs to raise money from others it should probably concern you immensely that he isn’t. The presidential candidate is the primary fundraiser for the entire party and Trump is failing spectacularly, and hes going to take the down ballot races with him.
I suggest you get over it, like many others got over their concern about Mitt Romney.
But I’m a special snowflake who likes to argue about this sort of thing. Most voters aren’t.
Yep.
If you think the charge of globalism is a smear, then you should desert the globalist camp and support Trump.
I detect no sympathy for any of the pro-American positions Trump has laid out, nor do I expect it will emerge.
I understand why you don’t like Trump, and I figure I’ve been critical enough about him that I’ve likely alienated any other Trump fans here who have bothered to notice my writings.
But he’s the GOP nominee, and the only option the party establishment has- if it wants to remain viable- is to support him fully, completely, relentlessly.
Otherwise, Trump supporters will walk away from the gop forever and all time, leaving the party an even more irrelevant than it has already made itself.
I suggest the party avoid that- but they don’t call the GOP the stupid party for nothing.
It does, but it also doesn’t surprise me that he hasn’t.
The GOP has revealed itself to be nothing more than a pretend opposition to the left, unwilling to go tho the mat to oppose them for anything.
Instead, the party spends its time attacking its supporters for failing to shut up hard enough to allow the party to win.
This is of course insanely stupid, but GOP…
Anyway, the party, manifesting its usual desire to punish its supporters, has decided that the way to do it is to stop doing the usual things a national political party would do, such as fundraising for a national election.
We’re all supposed to blame Trump for this, because the party thinks everyone is as stupid as they are.
Nope.
At the risk of repeating myself, the GOP needs to stop lamenting that an outsider won the nomination, and start working to elect him. I doubt any Trump supporter believes the GOP is so completely dependent on the presidential nominee to raise funds that it can’t raise any without him.
Instead, I think we’ll all assume that the party deliberately chose to stop fundraising, to once again punish its supporters.
I suggest the GOP stop playing this game… but the stupid party, etc.
The GOP is not solely responsible for fundraising for the Presidential campaign. Most of that responsibility lies with the candidate himself. Heck Bernie Sanders managed to raise over $200M for small time donors. If Trumps base is as vast as you believe why can’t he raise the money from them?
The rest of my comment, which you did not quote, laid out the fact that the Presidential Candidate is also the chief fundraiser for the party, if anything it is Trump failing the party and not the other way around. Sheldon Adelson pledge $100M to Trumps campaign – why hasn’t Trump sealed the deal there?
I have seen no evidence that “the party” has stopped fundraising. I see evidence that Trump never started fundraising, which is unexpected and disheartening for those who were hoping he would. Even a losing Presidential campaign is a chance to get campaign staff experience, grow and update donor rolls, get voter data, test different ad strategies and get-out-the-vote strategies, etc. By not campaigning, Trump hurts the party’s future chances at success.
Spare me. Again, the gop should stop whining that Trump won and start fundraising.
If any other candidate had won we’d be reading of the long list of rich folks who’d sent vast sums to the GOP campaign. If that sort is really committed to the GOP then they should have already sent their money.
But because the actual candidate hasn’t promised to enact their globalist agenda- shock, no money appears.
All this makes believe that my theory that the GOP doesn’t actually exist is true. We get a sham and a lie that fills a space on a ballot, but otherwise the party just isn’t there.
It has no characteristics of a mass movement, nor does it seek to acquire them.
And, being on the gop mailing list, I have yet to receive a fundraising appeal for the party’s nominee.
Why not?
Well, this cuts both ways. Latter-day populists say the reason the GOP lost previously is, establishment candidates were nominated & the decisive part of the electorate decided to stay home. It is not the primary electorate of 2012 that made Mr. Trump the nominee, is it?
Surely, the oligarchs get to stay home in 2016 by the same rules, so to speak–he’s not their man any more than Mr. Romney was the man of the people who now have come out to vote.
I’m sorry for the people who were loyal then & are loyal, too, now, but apparently, the popular candidates & the establishment candidates reflect such different views of the party that they cannot mount a coalition.
Moralizing did not help get out the vote in 2012; I do not believe it will work with donors or what have you in 2016-
The actual fundraising numbers suggest otherwise.
Again, if the GOP was an actual movement, with an in-place political organization such that it could reasonably be considered a national political party- it should damned well be raising boatloads of money, just like the demonrats.
But it ain’t, so instead we get finger-pointing aimed at Trump.
Yet again, I take this as evidence that the GOP doesn’t really exist.
Trump’s fundraising numbers suggest Trump isn’t raising money. The RNC’s most recent fundraising number compare terribly to this time in 2012, when Romney was doing lots of fundraising for them. I haven’t compared month-by-month numbers overall for 2011-2012 versus 2015-2016, so I don’t know if, before it became obvious Trump was going to win, the RNC was doing better or worse that 4 years ago.
Alternate explanation- since 1980, the Republican party has functioned as a vehicle of the conservative movement. But because the candidate hasn’t promised to enact their conservative agenda- shock, no money appears.
I think it’s a combination of disenchantment by the voters (Trump really is the least popular GOP nominee since, um, maybe ever), antagonism from the donor class and Trump’s inept campaign organization combined. A perfect storm of factors.
He may get small dollar donations together through money bombs, emergency drives or just out-and-out coopting another campaign’s organization which is his best bet (Cruz’s campaign seemed like the best put together, Jeb’s the worst so I know which I’d want.)
Just out of (genuine) curiosity, where are they going to go?
I don’t think this is entirely fair. Most nevertrumpers I’ve heard or read absolutely don’t accept Hillary Clinton as a candidate.
A few, who feel obligated both to vote and to vote for one of the two major party nominees, do. Most are either not voting for President or voting for a third-party candidate. The idea that not voting or voting third-party is the same as voting for Clinton is dumb though.
They don’t necessarily have to go anywhere.
They just keep voting for nationalist over globalist candidates.
Eventually, there is a surprise leadership vote and we have Senator Sessions as the new GOP leader, for example.
Nothing wrong with that.