Trump lags on raising funds
Presumptive GOP nominee has $1.3 million in bank, compared to rival Clinton’s $42 million
Just weeks after going back on his pledge to self-fund his presidential campaign, Donald Trump on Tuesday came under attack from fellow Republicans stunned to learn that he entered the final month of the primary season with barely enough cash to run for a California House seat let alone the White House.
The New York billionaire blamed reticent GOP donors for his money woes after revealing that he had less than $1.3 million in his campaign account as of May 31. That’s not only a tiny fraction of the $42 million reported this week by Hillary Clinton, it’s also less than a host of California lawmakers have at their disposal, including Bay
Area Congresswomen Jackie Speier and Zoe Lofgren and five of the state’s 14 Republican members of Congress.
“I’m having more difficulty, frankly, with some of the people in the party,” Trump said, trying to explain his cash shortfall Tuesday morning on NBC’s “Today” show, adding: “They don’t want to come on.”
Trump later announced that he would match any donation “within the next 48 hours, up to $2 million,” while describing Clinton’s cash haul as “blood money.”
“Look, she’s getting tremendous amounts from Wall Street; she is going to take care of Wall Street,” Trump told CBS News on Tuesday, just hours before his own scheduled fundraiser with top financiers.
Trump had been expected to struggle in wrangling money from top Republican donors upset over his perceived racially charged and sexist comments, as well as his departure from conservative economic principles.
Warning sign
But some Republican operatives said his giant fundraising whiff in May — he raised just $3.1 million — is a warning sign as big as Trump Tower and could embolden those still hoping to deny him the nomination at next month’s party convention in Cleveland.
“If he can’t go out there and perform as a fundraiser, I think there will be increasing questions heading into Cleveland about whether something else should be done,” said Rob Stutzman, a GOP strategist who had sought to defeat Trump in California’s primary before Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich dropped out of the race.
Presidential candidates are typically fundraising engines for their parties. Mitt Romney had raised more than $23 million in May 2012, when he was the presumptive Republican nominee. And he had helped the Republican National Committee sock away more than $60 million at this point in the campaign. Currently, the committee has about $20 million in the bank, compared with the Democratic National Committee’s $10 million.
But Romney, much like Clinton this year, had spent years building a well-honed fundraising operation that Trump simply can’t replicate in a matter of months, said Wayne Johnson, a Republican strategist based in Sacramento.
“One of the downsides of bragging about how rich you are is people wonder why they should write you a check,” Johnson said.
Trump’s disappointing fundraising figures, he added, are a “bubble buster” for his candidacy. “You can’t run as the rich guy and then run out of money,” Johnson said.
Trump, who loaned his campaign more than $45 million during the primaries, said in a statement Tuesday that his fundraising has picked up this month and would be reflected in his next campaign finance report set to be released next month. He also pledged to put up his own money if donations fell short.
Trump’s slow start allowed Clinton to dominate the airwaves in swing states this month, while he resorted to responding via Twitter and television news appearances.
As of May, Trump had less than half as much money on hand as state Attorney General Kamala Harris had in her U.S. Senate campaign account. And he had less than a third as much money as Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom had at the end of last year in his campaign fund to run for governor — in 2018.
Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, had only about $100,000 less in his campaign account than Trump.
“Donald Trump says he wants to compete in California, but he doesn’t even have the money to compete in San Diego,” said Ron Nehring, a former state GOP chairman who served as Cruz’s national campaign spokesman.
Trump also is facing scrutiny for spending campaign cash on his own products. Nearly 10 percent of the $63 million his campaign spent through May went to Trump-owned properties or reimbursement for his expenses.
Expenses included $4.6 million paid to his private jet company, TAG Air, and $423,000 that he paid last month to Mar-a-Lago Club, his resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Campaign expenses
The campaign, which is headquartered in Trump Tower, has also paid $520,000 in rent and utilities to Trump Tower Commercial LLC and to Trump Corporation. Other campaign expenses included $26,000 to rent a facility at Trump Miami golf course, $11,000 for a Trump hotel in Chicago and $5,000 to Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC.
Trump’s penchant to spend campaign cash on his own businesses risks turning off already-skeptical contributors, said Charlie Spies, a Republican elections lawyer who has worked with GOP megadonors.
“Why would donors give money when the first dollars go to help a billionaire buy products from his own company?” Spies asked.
“One of the downsides of bragging about how rich you are is people wonder why they should write you a check.” — Wayne Johnson, GOP strategist