$51M – for starters
T HE Republican Party and Donald Trump ramped up their joint fund-raising last month by hauling in a combined $51 million to support his presidential bid.
The real-estate tycoon chipped in $3.8 million to boost the total to $55 million.
Trump vowed he would raise more than enough money to defeat Hillary Clinton, noting how he raised less and spent wisely to defeat his primary opponents.
He said he won’t be running campaign ads until after he’s nominated at the Republican Party Convention in Cleveland, which starts July 18.
“I don’t want to waste money now. It’s too early,” Trump told The Post’s editorial board.
“I spent less money than anybody else. It used to be in the old days if you spent less money and had fewer people, you’d be called a genius.
“Fifty-one million, as you know, is far greater than anyone would have thought. We just got started.”
Trump said voter disgust over Clinton escaping prosecution for her e-mail scandal will generate even more financial support.
“People are sick of the scam you just saw. People are sick of the constant scamming of all of us by the Clintons,” he said.
Trump was particularly pleased that $26 million came in small donations from 400,000 supporters who mostly gave less than $200.
Trump and the Republican National Committee also hosted 22 fund-raising events throughout the country that raised more than $25 million.
Trump and the GOP still trail Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, which raised a combined $68.5 million last month.
Guess who’s raising money — and from small donors: That’s right, Donald Trump. The GOP presidential wannabe raked in $51 million in June, his campaign said Wednesday. It came from 400,000-plus donors — with more than half from Trump’s digital and small-donation efforts.
The ironies are rich: For starters, Hillary Clinton’s backers gloat about her wide cash lead, suggesting it reflects Trump’s poor organizational skills and his lack of popularity, compared to hers. Oops.
Notably, she and her party rounded up just $68.5 million in June, not much more than Trump’s haul. And remember, Hillary began hitting up donors 15 months ago; Trump started barely five weeks ago.
More ironic: “Progressives” (i.e., Hillary backers) bray about the need to “get money out of politics,” yet lately have bragged about the enormous cash Clinton has on hand to “influence” the election.
True, given her early start, Hillary’s pulled in more than a quarter of a billion bucks so far. But shouldn’t her backers be outraged by that, rather than proud?
From the start, Trump has dashed expectations. Many thought he wouldn’t run for president, that he’d lose if he did and, more recently, that he couldn’t raise money. He’s proved them wrong repeatedly.
He’s also shown that cash and resources aren’t always the deciding factor: “I had fewer people than anybody . . . in the primaries, and I spent less money,” he said at a meeting with The Post Wednesday. Yet he won more votes than his competitors.
The key, he says, is to spend wisely, to get more bang for the buck. It’s certainly a good philosophy for a government nearly $20 trillion in the hole.
Democrats like Hillary, by contrast, never stop thinking of ways to spend more — and wind up getting less. Even before the conventions have crowned their nominees, the contrast is starting to become apparent.