Trump campaign falls into a familiar trap: Financial Mismanagement
Will they ever learn from their mistakes?
A little-known and little-discussed fact about the 2020 election cycle is that Donald Trump and the GOP outraised and outspent President Biden and the Democrats, yet still managed to receive a whopping defeat.
The Trump campaign’s financial mismanagement was so bad that they ran out of money in the final leg of the presidential election, going dark without any media spend in the Midwest.
How do you do that?
How can you run a billion-dollar campaign into the ground one month before the election? That’s what happens when you’re managed by someone with no financial sense. For a while, I thought Trump and his team might have learned from the 2020 mess they created themselves.
But, nope. Not at all.
The overspenders are at it again.
The Trump campaign spent more money in August than it raised. They still have $135 million in the bank, but spending more than they raised and dipping into the cash reserves from earlier months is exactly what got them into trouble in 2020. Let’s see what happens in September.
Kamala Harris raised $190 million and spent $174 million in August. Donald Trump raised $45 million but spent $61 million. Harris ended the month with $235 million in the bank, while Trump has $135 million.
Does Trump even have a ground game?
Many of my readers told me that Donald Trump’s ground game is essentially non-existent. I wanted to believe it, but I also didn’t want to accept it. However, it looks like my readers were right: Harris has three times more staff than Donald Trump.
The Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee had a combined more than 1,200 staffers on payroll, compared to about 320 for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
The Midwest and Pennsylvania have been shifting point by point in favor of Harris. The Trump campaign has made a bold bet to focus on the Sunbelt states. While it’s not an impossible task, it is a defensive position. Given the state of their finances and the momentum Harris enjoys, it makes sense for them to stick to their strategy to focus on North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada.
However, there’s no guarantee that he can win all four states, as Harris is polling right alongside Trump in each of them. How can you claim to be all in if you’re not investing in the ground game? It makes no sense whatsoever.
The Trump campaign is making a significant mistake by assuming they can control the electoral map through TV appearances alone. While that is an important aspect of all elections, relying solely on it will likely lead to defeat against someone who is actively knocking on doors.
Billionaires are doing everything they can to keep the Trump ship sailing
The only thing Trump has going for him is the support of billionaires and two individuals who are eager to turn the United States into an oligarchy, doing everything they can to help the Trump campaign.
Trump “benefited from more outside spending on his behalf in August than Harris did — $163 million to $104 million, according to FEC independent expenditure filings”.
But how far these billionaires will be able to help Trump bridge the growing gap with Kamala Harris remains to be seen. The biggest factor to consider here is the aura of winnability, which Harris has already captured. That’s why she is raising money at a much faster rate than Trump, placing intense downward pressure on his campaign funds.
It’s a vicious cycle that is very difficult to break. Money boosts Harris’s polling lead, which enhances her aura, and that increased aura attracts more money. One of the first predictions I made in this cycle was that Donald Trump would raise less money than Kamala Harris, and that is happening. I don’t believe the GOP billionaires will be able to lift Trump out of this hole.