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WASHINGTON POST
At the end of a day that started with Trump firing his campaign manager (much more on that below), he filed an embarrassing May fundraising report late last night with the FEC. Despite raising $3.1 million and loaning himself another $2 million, Trump began this month with less than $1.3 million cash on hand.
Clinton, by comparison, raised $28 million and started off June with $42 million in cash. Bernie Sanders, with his campaign winding down, still brought in $15.6 million last month and had $9.2 million cash on hand.
“If fundraising is, at its root, a test of whether you can get people to vote for you with their checkbooks, Trump failed in May,” Chris Cillizza assesses. “And he failed with every possible advantage working for him: Momentum, decent-to-good polling and, at least for part of the month, a Republican Party that seemed willing to unify behind him.”
-- To be sure, Trump is not running anything close to a conventional campaign. And we might be making a mistake judging him by those standards. A big part of his appeal is that he is unorthodox. He beat better-funded Republicans in the primary, and he can afford to raise less than Clinton because of the free media attention he commands and the sheer force of his personality. But being outraised so dramatically (nine-to-one!) undeniably puts him at a palpable disadvantage in the nuts-and-bolts side of 2016. And a general election is a far different beast than a Republican nominating contest.
-- Trump spent $6.7 million in May. That’s down from $9.4 million in April, but it’s actually a pretty stunning amount when you consider that he’s not advertising or building a serious field operation. So where did all the money go? Matea Gold and Anu Narayanswamy report that the campaign paid out more than $1 million to Trump-owned companies and to reimburse his own family for travel expenses. Here are some of the campaign's biggest expenditures:
- Campaign swag and printing - $958,836: Hats, pens, T-shirts, mugs and stickers
- Air charters - $838,774: “Nearly $350,000 of the money spent on private jets went to Trump's own TAG Air.”
- Event staging and rentals - $830,482: This includes the fees for renting facilities such as the Anaheim Convention Center ($43,000) and the Fresno Convention Center ($24,715). But the biggest sum went to Trump's own Mar-A-Lago Club, which was paid $423,317.Meanwhile, the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, got $35,845, while the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fl., was paid $29,715. And Trump’s son Eric’s wine company received nearly $4,000.
- - The FEC reports show that Trump has about 70 staffers total, one-tenth as many as Clinton’s 683. But, instead of rushing to staff up, he bragged about it during an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News last night.-- More problems: Donations through the “Trump Victory Fund,” expected to help boost his general-election coffers, have also trickled in slower than expected, Matea notes. The numbers really are startling when compared to Mitt Romney’s at this point four years ago. In May 2012, the former Massachusetts governor raised more than $34 million and ended the month with more than $60 million in the bank. Nearly $26 million that month came through the Romney Victory Fund. (The Republican National Committee itself took on $2 million more debt last month.)
- As The Post’s Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt puts it, “If this were a beauty pageant, Trump would want the crown and the adoration but not the mandatory year of appearances at charity events and visits to the troops. … He seems to have no interest in doing the things that most candidates, and up until now all presidents, have had to do. Listen to advisers, for example. Have advisers. Read policy papers. Read anything but his own reviews.”
Corey Lewandowski, (Spencer Platt) - Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, yesterday under pressure from his family and the RNC. From Philip Rucker, Jose A. DelReal and Sean Sullivan: “A Trump loyalist whose mantra was ‘Let Trump be Trump,’ Lewandowski chafed at suggestions that the candidate behave more presidentially. His departure consolidates power around veteran GOP operative and lobbyist Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman and senior strategist, who has been trying with limited success to professionalize the campaign. Lewandowski’s internal turf battles with Manafort were intense and at times paralyzed the campaign.”
David Becker/Reuters- -- Trump is getting defined in June, and it will be impossible for him to change perceptions of himself once they’ve gelled, Maggie Haberman says in The New York Times.
- -- The Stop Trump movement now counts 400 delegates as allies, quickly transforming what began as an idea tossed around on social media into a force that could derail a national campaign,” Ed O'Keefe reports. “While organizers concede their plan could worsen internal party strife, they believe they are responding to deep-rooted concerns among conservatives about Trump. … ‘Short-term, yes, there’s going to be chaos,’ said Kendal Unruh, co-founder of the Free the Delegates movement. ‘Long-term this saves the party and we win the election. Everything has to go through birthing pains to birth something great.’ Unruh said her cause is winning support from ‘the non-rabble rousers. The rule-following, churchgoing grandmas who aren’t out protesting in the streets. This is the way they push back.’”
-- “A delegate revolt has become Republicans’ only option,” conservative columnist Michael Gerson argues in his column today. - —It's destined to fail, says Chris Cillizza. "There were always pockets of resistance to the idea of Trump as the nominee. Just as there are now with the attempt to take the nomination from him. But the reality then is the same as the reality now: The Trump resistance simply isn't as large or as organized as the Trump supporters. (Sidebar: Getting people to vote against Trump at the convention would be a whole heck of a lot easier if there were an alternative people could vote for. There isn't.)"All of the 'Dump Trump' movements have failed for a very simple reason: The rank-and-file Republican voters wanted (and want) him. That may confound some within the party and make others mad. But it's the reality. And it's time to acknowledge that Republican voters are the ones who get to decide the nominee. And they made their choice clear long ago."
(Joel Page/Reuters) - says Chris Cillizza, Monday's move doesn't get rid of the campaign figure generating the most damage to the campaign: Trump himself."Trump is the campaign manager, chief strategist, lead organizer and every other senior role within the campaign. (Yes, Lewandowski 'managed' the campaign but only in the sense that he executed things that Trump asked him to do. 'Campaign implementer' is a more accurate title for what Lewandowski did.)"The only way Trump's campaign changes in any meaningful way then is if Trump himself changes. He's rhetorically flicked at the idea of becoming 'more presidential' and insisted that if he is elected president he will act with much more gravitas. But, Trump keeps making that promise — remember how he said he was going to be more presidential once he won the primary? — and not keeping it.
- "Trump is the campaign manager, chief strategist, lead organizer and every other senior role within the campaign. (Yes, Lewandowski 'managed' the campaign but only in the sense that he executed things that Trump asked him to do. 'Campaign implementer' is a more accurate title for what Lewandowski did.)"The only way Trump's campaign changes in any meaningful way then is if Trump himself changes. He's rhetorically flicked at the idea of becoming 'more presidential' and insisted that if he is elected president he will act with much more gravitas. But, Trump keeps making that promise — remember how he said he was going to be more presidential once he won the primary? — and not keeping it.
- "Why? Because people don't change. Especially very successful people who are 70 years old.