Trump team dismisses Clinton’s £70m advantage in campaign’s final stretch
DONALD TRUMP’S team has downplayed federal filings showing Hillary Clinton with a £70 million cash advantage in the final stretch of the presidential campaign.
New fundraising records show her campaign and joint accounts with Democrats had £125m in the bank last week.
That is more than double the £55m the Republican’s campaign and partnership committees had on hand.
Republican vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence said the campaign’s message matters more than “dollars and cents” and it is up to Mr Trump to decide if he wants to put more of his personal fortune into the campaign.
The latest contribution reports, up to date from Wednesday, show he had given only about £27,000 this month – far short of the £1.6m he typically gives.
Ms Clinton’s continued fundraising edge in the latest filings, which cover the first 19 days of the month, helps ensure the Democratic nominee can maintain her sprawling political operation in the frantic final days of the race.
She maintains a staff of more than 800 – several times larger than Mr Trump’s – and has spent more on advertising than the Republican in every week of the race.
But Mr Pence said he senses “real momentum” in the Republican campaign.
“This week, I saw all the headlines: ‘The race is over. It’s over and done’. That’s just not what I see out there,” he said.
The Indiana governor was making the rounds on the morning TV shows yesterday after his plane slid off the runway during a rainstorm at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late on Thursday, tearing up concrete before coming to rest on a patch of grass.
No-one was injured and Mr Pence praised the “quick action” of his pilot, before moving on to campaign stops in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Ms Clinton plans to campaign in Iowa, where new polling shows her in a dead heat with Mr Trump, erasing a lead he has held for much of the race.
Her campaign will also get a boost from President Barack Obama. He will be holding an evening rally in Orlando, a key battleground area of the crucial swing state of Florida.