The “fundraising juggernaut” that Brad Parscale characterized the Trump campaign as not too long ago, has apparently overheated from strain, because when last seen it was collapsed in the corner with smoke pouring out of it. In fact, next to Joe Biden’s fundraising efforts, the Trump juggernaut looks to be as overblown and ineffectual as Trump himself. It was reported last week that Republican megadonors Sheldon Adelson and Bernie Marcus were contemplating large donations to the Trump campaign, and that might be in order to keep the lights on. Parscale has run the campaign’s finances into the ground, and Trump is freaking right now.
My Campaign spent a lot of money up front in order to compensate for the false reporting and Fake News concerning our handling of the China Virus. Now they see the GREAT job we have done, and we have 3 times more than we had 4 years ago – & are up in polls. Lots of $’s & ENERGY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2020
Mr. Trump enters the fall trailing in most national and swing state polls, and Mr. Biden has surpassed him as a fund-raising powerhouse, after posting a record-setting haul of nearly $365 million in August. The Trump campaign has not revealed its August fund-raising figure.
“If you spend $800 million and you’re 10 points behind, I think you’ve got to answer the question ‘What was the game plan?’” said Ed Rollins, a veteran Republican strategist who runs a small pro-Trump super PAC, and who accused Mr. Parscale of spending “like a drunken sailor.”
All that scratch has gone somewhere and it wasn’t into usual campaign expenditures. It was used to pay $15,000 a month to Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump and for what? For an Evita imitation and to misquote Lincoln? The campaign is so strapped that the day after Parscale got canned and Bill Stepien took over, Stepien took a cut in pay to head up the campaign. A promotion with a cut in pay? Another first in Trump world. Meanwhile, Parscale still has the real estate in Florida and the Lamborghini and Stepien tries to pull the campaign out of the toilet. The Trump gravy train financed a lot of play for a lot of people, now it doesn’t have any money left to win the election.
At the top of the whiteboard in Mr. Stepien’s office are the latest numbers on the campaign budget, and Mr. Stepien has instituted a number of changes since he was promoted from deputy campaign manager. A proposal to spend $50 million in costs related to coalitions groups was cast aside. An idea to spend $3 million for a NASCAR car bearing Mr. Trump’s name was discarded.
The number of staff members allowed to travel to events has been pared back to avoid what one senior campaign official described as “sponsoring vacations.”
Trips aboard Air Force One, popular because they enable aides to get face time with the president — but which have to be compensated by the campaign — have been slashed.
“The most important thing I do every day is pay attention to the budget,” Mr. Stepien said in a brief interview. He declined to discuss budget specifics but said the campaign had enough funds to win.
They’ve got a cash crunch in the last sixty days of a presidential campaign? Another first. But it’s got to be true. In the last two weeks of August, Biden’s campaign spent $35.9 million on television, compared with $4.8 million for Trump’s — and Trump’s the one down in the polls. Oh, excuse me, he’s down in the “fake” polls. He’s doing quite well in the “real” ones, that his sycophants quote.
But not to worry, not only are the polls fake, so are these figures. The Trump campaign is still loaded, we are told.
“We held on to cash to make sure that we’ll have the firepower that we need” for the fall, said Jason Miller, a senior Trump strategist, who contended that airing ads during the conventions would prove a waste for Mr. Biden. “We want to make sure that we’re saving it for when it really matters, when it’s going to move the needle.”
They’ve got the “firepower.” Would this be from Parscale’s much vaunted “Death Star?” Let’s see if Donald Trump kicks in $100 Million of his own cash — which might be his entire net worth right about now. It’s well known he keeps two sets of books, one to look good to lenders, one to look poor to the tax man and perhaps there could be a third, one to get him over the reelection line.
What I want to know is who’s gonna pony up for Trump’s daily truckloads of Big Macs, huh? Better call Sheldon.
Oh, you haven’t heard the same story I have, then. Apparently (and this is unconfirmed but way too juicy not to share), Trump called up Adelson because despite the millions the latter was giving the former, the former wanted yet MORE money. Trump then said something that pissed Adelson off (shocker, I know) to the point where Adelson cut Trump off financially and not one dime has gone to the campaign since.
Beam me up Scottie, the patients are running the asylum.
You left out the part where Trump’s ad campaign has gone COMPLETELY OFFLINE in battleground states like Arizona with less than 60 days on the clock. Be surprised if the last 200 million doesn’t wind up in Trump’s pocket as he flees the country.
Well the dingledick is here AGAIN, tonight, in our congressional district for another “rally”. I wish he’d stay the fluck outta my state! He obviously spent the bucks to make this trip, so lord knows. There’s enough of his trash around here already.
They’re paying people 15K per month to keep their mouths closed about what they know, they spent money like it was going out of style early in the year (those Super Bowl ads!), and they’re using donations to pay legal fees.
Also, Himself was never a billionaire except in his fake account books, the ones that were to show banks.
About those “August fundraising figures,” they’re actually not due to the FEC till September 20 (per the FEC website). And, while the government generally allows a later date when the deadline falls on a non-work day (in this case, it’s Sunday), the FEC don’t play that sh**. Per the website, “Filing deadlines are not extended when they fall on nonworking days. Accordingly, reports filed by methods other than registered, certified or overnight mail, or electronically, must be received by close of business on the last business day before the deadline.”
Of course, campaigns that AREN’T having financial problems won’t have any problem releasing their figures publicly before the deadline (obviously, they’ll get those figures to the FEC tout de suite).
Agree. However, if Trump had quite a haul, something to brag about, like Biden did, he would have bragged. He would have reported it already.
For some idiotic reason, they are coming to Nevada this weekend. Yuck.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/9/8/1975835/-Trump-rally-coming-to-Nevada-saturday-It-is-called-The-Great-American-Comeback-Events-smirk
If he’s coming to California, I haven’t heard about it. He can’t be stupid enough to want to waste money here. His chances of winning California are less than his chances of winning New York.
Well, his people were stupid enough to waste ad revenue on the Washington D.C. media market, Ursula. Just saying…
There is no wall around stupidity.
If he come to CA, it’s to use us an an ATM…then probably some sort of racist photo op.
They could always just announce the numbers they tell Trump, but I guess that and the secret polls are just for his consumption.
The “fundraising juggernaut” that Brad Parscale characterized the Trump campaign as not too long ago, has apparently…turned into the fundraising “jagoff-for-naught!”
Long, long ago when questioned on how Trump was coming up with the money to keep buying expensive golf courses/resorts at over-market value and then laying out cash for multiple tens of millions in improvements to many of them Eric Trump told a golf writer who was doing a piece on the matter that they had all the money they needed coming in from Russia. This was fifteen years ago give or take. So the real question is whether Putin has figured he’s gotten all the chaos out of Trump he can get. Chess is a national sport in Russia and Putin has to have looked at 2018, at least some court decisions that slowed down GOP voter suppression, and in particular Democratic enthusiasm in the primaries – and specifically how all those minority voters stood six, eight or more hours in Milwaukee AFTER the pandemic was in full swing to vote in a STATE special election for a single seat on the WI State Supreme Court.
If Putin calculates (or already has) that not only Democrats will show up and vote against Trump (and a helluva lot of GOP folks) and those same formerly right leaning independents and true independents will be voting Democratic he will pull the plug on Trump. Wouldn’t you love to have a tap on the line for that particular “sorry Donald” chat? Maybe, just maybe (and here’s the bad news if Putin dumps Trump) he will implement his “safety” plan – use a series of cutouts to funnel gobs of cash into certain GOP Senate races in the hopes of at least keeping McConnell, who is now beholden to ODP (and therefore Putin) in power as a check on the Biden administration. And to water down the inevitable sanctions that will be coming from Biden. Of course, ole Mitch might not be as tractable since he’s got his Chinese connections via his wife.
Anyway, I know more believe Trump would spent a hundred million of his own money on his campaign (and that’s assuming he’s got that much liquidity to do so) any more than I believe I’ll be recalled to active duty and named Commandant of the Marine Corps. Even by Biden!
My suspicion about why they used the White House and Fort McHenry for convention acceptance speeches was that they could get them for free and not have to pay. This would fit in with the campaign being short on cash.
I think the past few years have made us all experts at how he,runs a business. (Spoiler: poorly, and into the ground.) They’re running the campaign the same way.
The list of expenses is absurd…$2 million on ads in DC because Trump likes to see his ads run? Lord. It’d be kinda funny to see them go broke in early October.