Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has only $1.29 million in cash compared to $42.5 million for Hillary Clinton, in what is reportedly the worst financial disadvantage of any major party nominee in recent history.
The Federal Election Commission reports filed by each campaign on Monday paint strikingly different pictures. While Trump took in $3.1 million in campaign donations in May, the month in which he emerged as the GOP’s presumptive nominee, Clinton raised $26.4 million.
This remarkable discrepancy underlines the catchup the Trump campaign needs to play as the 2016 race moves into its final months. While the Clinton campaign has spent the last year building a national fundraising and advertising infrastructure, Trump has pointedly refused to do the same. The New York mogul prided himself on his ability to vanquish 16 Republican candidates in the primaries with a “self-funded” campaign built around free publicity and $40 million of his own money.
Trump has said he will rely on the Republican National Committee to help him raise the millions needed to build the infrastructure needed to run a general election campaign. Yet he’s reportedly been unwilling to assist the RNC with donor outreach. According to a report from Politico out last week, Trump only called three donors from a list of 20 given to him by the RNC.
The picture is no brighter for the real estate tycoon when it comes to outside funding. According to Reuters, the main Super PAC supporting Trump, Great America PAC, raised $1.4 million in May and had $500,971 left in cash at the beginning of June. Clinton, by contrast, has a network of well-funded PACs supporting her bid. The larges, Priorities USA, raised $12 million in May, ending the month with $52 million in cash.
The dismal fundraising news for Trump was released the same day his campaign fired campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who oversaw the team’s fundraising, according to Reuters. A top Trump adviser, Michael Caputo, resigned Monday after posting a tweet celebrating Lewandowski’s dismissal.
Way to go Trump.
Yuuuuge advantage to Hillary.
I’m no fan of large amounts of money sloshing around in the political process, BUT, just for today…HAH HAH HAH HAH! Heh heh. Oh, jeez, this is rich.
Unless and until both political parties mutually agree to measures that drastically cut back the amount of money required to run campaigns—good luck getting the Kochs and Adelsons to agree to that—Democrats have no choice but to raise as much as they can. To refuse to do so is unilateral disarmament, otherwise known as political suicide.
Trump’s just following his basic business model – fleece the rubes, go in the hole, line your own pocket along the way, and then in the end stiff your suppliers.
My prediction is that Trump’s campaign will be the first ever to officially declare bankruptcy, after the election of course. At that point, how can you expect someone with the attention span of a 2-year-old to put any effort into retiring campaign debt?
Coming soon to a cheap advertising spot near you, an argument that Republicans are the true people wanting money out of politics.