Donald Trump Aides Running Scared Over Yuuuuge Fundraising Gap

Donald Trump on the campaign trail in Phoenix (image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)
Donald Trump on the campaign trail in Phoenix (image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

When Hillary Clinton’s polling numbers against Donald Trump took a dive in the wake of her unplanned week off from the campaign trail, a lot of people got nervous. I was among them at first. But then, I remembered that there was one big reason that this dip wasn’t likely to last. Based on past history, Trump’s anemic fundraising over most of the summer was likely to leave him at a yuuuge disadvantage in the campaign’s stretch run.

Well, it turns out that Trump’s own advisers know this as well. Politico reports that in recent days, a number of the Donald’s top aides have scrambled to figure out how to overcome Trump’s massive fundraising disadvantage. They’ve also had a lot of finger-pointing and shouting matches over who’s to blame.

Through the end of July, Hillary and her allies in outside groups raised $435 million, compared to only $160 million for Trump and his outside group allies. As a result, Trump faces an infrastructure disadvantage that is almost unprecedented for a major-party presidential candidate. As of September 19–50 days before Election Day–Hillary had spent seven times as much money on television ads as Trump–the largest gap that strategists from both parties can ever recall. Additionally, Trump has only half as many campaign field offices in swing states as Hillary. Simply put, Hillary is poised to absolutely pound Trump on the air and on the ground in October–and as it stands now, Trump doesn’t have the resources to withstand it down the stretch.

Last Thursday, several of Trump’s top advisers gathered in Trump Tower to figure out how to close the gap. Republican National Committee chief of staff Katie Walsh was also on hand. At that meeting, Trump fundraiser Gentry Beach told Walsh to her face that her bosses at the RNC weren’t doing enough to help Trump. He even claimed that he didn’t have access to the RNC’s donor data. Hogwash, said Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is regularly in touch with both Walsh and RNC chairman Reince Priebus. Kushner said that the RNC had always been responsive to the campaign’s concerns.

However, that wasn’t enough to prevent another dustup during a Monday conference call. Longtime GOP fundraiser Rory Bailey suggested the campaign do more to reach out to big Republican donors who have yet to open their wallets. This was an obvious swipe at campaign finance chairman Steven Mnuchin; Bailey was effectively accusing him of failing to do something which is considered Campaign Fundraising 101.

Mnuchin replied that it would be a wasted effort to call establishment-aligned donors who weren’t willing to give to Trump. After a long argument, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson broke in to tell Bailey that it would be better to reach uncommitted donors by calling them directly, rather than bring them in on conference calls. Gee–shouldn’t this discussion have been held in May, not September?

From my admittedly pro-Hillary prospective, I suspect Trump is to blame. After all, it’s been well-documented that Trump’s fundraising gap is so yuuuge because many people thought he was going to self-finance. However, Trump’s massive debt load and bankruptcies make it extremely unlikely that any responsible lender would allow him to tap into his real estate holdings to get the money that would have theoretically narrowed the gap. Trump almost certainly knew this–and yet, hasn’t made much effort to tap into small donors or perform the most basic fundraising tasks until recently.

In a race where all available evidence indicates that whoever can get their voters to the polls will win, this means Trump is in a much more dire situation than both the polls and Nate Silver’s forecast would have you believe. Judging from the events of Thursday and Friday, Trump’s own team knows it.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.