The most recent fundraising reports for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been released and the numbers reflect very poorly on Trump. Clinton has a clear, decisive financial advantage over the real estate mogul in the home stretch of the campaign.
Here are seven things you need to know about the recent fundraising reports, as reported by the Washington Post and CNN.
1. Clinton has raised twice as much as money as Trump this month. Clinton raised over $57 million, while Trump raised $29 million. They have amassed $153 million and $68 million, respectively, when joint fundraising committees are included.
2. Trump’s fundraising has declined dramatically from the previous month. Trump and his fundraising committees hauled in $100 million in September, indicating that the recent sexual assault allegations against Trump have severely hampered his fundraising efforts, especially among elite donors.
3. Trump’s campaign only has $16 million at their disposal. Clinton, on the other hand, is loaded with $62 million on hand.
4. Ironically, Clinton has given more to her campaign this month than Trump has given to his. Trump only gave $31,000 to his campaign, while Clinton gave $500,000.
Trump had pledged to spend $100 million of his own money to his campaign, but in order to reach that number he would have to dump $44 million of his own money into the campaign. According to CNN, Trump reportedly sent his campaign $10 million on Friday, which is still far short of the $100 million number.
The real estate mogul had been providing around $2 million per month to his campaign until this month.
5. If Trump were to suddenly pour $44 million into his campaign, it likely wouldn’t have much of an impact. CNN provided the following analysis from GOP strategist Jim Bognet:
“If you don’t care about price and efficiency, you could definitely spend tens of millions of incremental dollars in a presidential race in the last 10 days of campaign,” he said. “In crowded swing state airwaves, it’s hard to get incremental space on broadcast TV at this time in true battlegrounds.”
Bognet had a few ideas for the Trump campaign. It could air television ads in second-tier states like Arizona or Utah — red states where he’s facing strong challenges from Clinton or independent candidate Evan McMullin — or do massive national cable buys on pricey channels like ESPN. It could invest big in radio, a relatively available medium where Bognet recalls making reservations in 2012 just 24 hours before Election Day. Or Trump could pay for turnout calls in every particular language — even up to on Election Day.
“The problem with all of this is it is super expensive,” Bognet said. “So the closer you get to Election Day, the more crowded with other campaign and super PAC ads are, and often the harder it is to either get bang for your buck or placement.”
In other words, Trump’s refusal to use his money as promised early on in the campaign has now put him in a precarious position where his money would be spent less efficiently, but he still needs ads if he’s going to pull off a comeback against Clinton.
6. Trump does not have any more fundraisers planned. This is according to a Washington Post report that quoted Trump’s national finance chairman, Steven Mnuchin, as saying “there is virtually nothing planned” on the fundraising front, meaning Trump’s last fundraiser was on October 19, the day of the last debate.
However, Lew Eisenberg, who runs the Trump Victory fundraising committee, has disputed the report, prompting Hot Air’s Allahpundit to write, “Why are Mnuchin and Eisenberg on different pages? Is the campaign scrambling suddenly to put together more events because of the clamor over the WaPo story?”
It would seem that Trump won’t have more money coming into his campaign unless he decides to use his own money. Meanwhile, Clinton had 41 fundraisers scheduled as of Tuesday.
7. The Republican National Committee’s fundraising is behind where it was in 2012 at this point in time. They are $72 million behind to be exact, although they have raised nearly $20 million so far this month, which is an improvement this election cycle. But given the fact that Trump is unlikely to bring in more money to the RNC, the organization being behind in fundraising doesn’t bode well for Senate Republicans fighting to hold onto their seats in this election cycle.
