The Trump campaign finally released their fundraising numbers. Or at least what they claim is their fundraising numbers, to Fox News.
Not a disastrously bad haul, but still $150 million behind the Biden campaign. The two campaigns were only separated by around $5 million in cash-on-hand at the end of July, so that gap will have been massive at the end of August. (We’ll know the exact numbers when fundraising reports are filed, and that’s soon.) That dramatic disparity in spending now means that the Trump camp can’t keep pace with Team Biden—not a place they want to be when lagging so far behind in the polls.
So let’s take a look at what that means with the air war.
The Trump campaign is only advertising in six states, just five of them real battlegrounds. Pulling out of Iowa and Ohio makes sense. If Trump is losing those states, he’s already lost Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and the campaign. Trump already wasted tens of million in those places, so someone there is finally making smarter calls.
Nevada and New Hampshire never really became competitive, so it makes sense that they’d quit pretending to compete for them. But not sure why Minnesota is on their list, while Arizona and Pennsylvania are not. That campaign is weird. Pennsylvania, in particular, is extra weird—the campaign had ad reservations ready to go, but they proactively cancelled them.
On the Biden side, it is clear they are focused on not making the mistakes of 2016 by taking core battlegrounds for granted. They’re looking to lock down Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and not taking Nevada and Minnesota for granted. Beyond the other core battlegrounds of Florida and North Carolina, they’re expanding the map in Ohio. But where is Georgia? Or Iowa?
Of course, the ability of this advertising to move numbers is suspect at best at the presidential level. How many people do you think exist who would be swayed by a 30- or 60-second television spot? But what other tools does the Trump campaign have to move public opinion against Biden? His Twitter account? It’s a joke that preaches to the deplorables.
There is one more wild card—Trump’s campaign is one big grift, and nowhere do we see that more than with its fundraising costs. As of July, the campaign had raised $1 billion, yet $350 million of that had been eaten up by “fundraising expenses.” The official party line is that those costs were inflated by the need to create fundraising infrastructure. If that’s true, then fundraising expenses should be markedly lower in August. But if 35% of their fundraising continues to get eaten by their grift, that would mean around $74 million fewer dollars to spend on actual campaign work. It would also mean that the leftover $135 million would be much closer to what I assumed would be their August haul. We’ll know one way or another in a few days!
Meanwhile, Trump has moved on from a week of defending himself for calling troops suckers for enlisting, and wounded and fallen soldiers “losers” for having sacrificed for their country, to defending himself over having lied about the coronavirus pandemic from the very beginning. And that’s worth more than any money Biden could ever raise.