Donald Trump made a bold pledge during his rambling presidential announcement inside the brass-laden, marble-filled lobby of Trump Tower. “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich,” he said.

While it’s true that Trump is really rich, the real estate mogul’s financial disclosure made public this week casts doubt on the idea that he has access to enough cash right now to spend the $1.5 billion or more it’s expected to cost to reach the White House in 2016.


Three estimates calculated after the release of the document on Wednesday put the upper limit of his cash and liquid assets at roughly $300 million. That’s plenty of money to get him a long way, but not necessarily all the way to November 2016, if he doesn’t implode first.

“On the face of it, yes, it does look like he does have a lot of cash to throw into the campaign,” Tom Pastore, president and CEO of Sanli Pastore & Hill, a California-based valuation and litigation support firm said in an interview after reviewing Trump’s financial disclosure.

The report filed by Trump on Wednesday lists assets, income and liabilities in ranges, so calculating Trump’s true ability to finance a campaign with his own cash on hand is difficult. Also, it’s a long way to Election Day, so there could be time to sell some of the more valuable properties in his vast real estate empire, or change course and accept cash from his die-hard fans and business partners.

On the low end, Bloomberg has calculated Trump has about $70.5 million in liquid assets. On the higher end, based off of the financial disclosure, Pastore calculated that Trump has about $250 million in cash and marketable securities, noting that all reported debt is on real properties, so no deduction is needed against cash and marketable securities.

Forbes, which says it has seen Trump’s bank statements, reports the figure at just more than $302.3 million, and told POLITICO on Wednesday that Trump’s new financial disclosure did not change their calculation.

Pastore, however, warned that it’s possible Trump has obligations directly against those liquid cash balances, liabilities that can be unreported but tie up certain parts of that cash.

Trump campaign spokespeople and his attorney Michael Cohen declined to comment on how much Trump has in liquid assets.

The release of Trump’s financials was a highly anticipated event, with many skeptics believing Trump would drop out of the race before giving the world a peek into his sprawling business portfolio. The release — a Federal Election Commission requirement — likely disappointed many of his GOP rivals, who are struggling to get airtime as Trump’s inflammatory comments and actions grab the media spotlight.

The document, however, does not definitively answer the burning question of Trump’s actual net worth. Trump has claimed it is $10 billion, whereas Forbes says is closer to $4.1 billion.

In the financial disclosure, Trump reported assets of at least $1.4 billion in real estate and other holdings, income of at least $431 million over the past 18 months from a large number of sources, and liabilities of at least $265 million, including several mortgages for different Trump properties.

Much of Trump’s worth, Pastore said, is based off of things like golf courses, the value of which is difficult to determine, and Trump’s own valuation of his “brand” is a nebulous idea of how much the Trump name is worth. Trump himself has said in a deposition that the value changes, based on how he feels. Forbes recently assessed the value of the Trump brand at precisely $0 because, the magazine contended, Trump’s bomb-throwing campaign rhetoric has made him toxic in corporate America.

If Trump wants to compete for the long haul in 2016, he’ll need to really pour his own fortune into it or get some friends to help. In 2012, Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama’s campaigns spent about $1 billion each, and the 2016 election is on pace to beat that handily, especially with what will likely be a long and contentious primary race.

According to second quarter Federal Election Commission fundraising reports, Trump loaned $1.8 million to his presidential campaign in the second quarter and raised just about $100,000 (He still got some money from donors, even though he said he didn’t need any. Also, loans from candidates to their own campaigns can — and usually are — converted to donations after the conclusion of the campaign).

In contrast, Jeb Bush contributed $389,000 from his own pocket to his campaign, but also raised $114 million from other donors into his campaign committee and a supportive super PAC. Even if Trump uses all of his available cash, it’s not clear he’d be able to outspend Bush unless he got some outside help or sell some other major assets.

Trump would be far from the first presidential candidate to finance their own campaign. Ross Perot spent $63.5 million of his own money in his 1992 third-party run for the White House, which amounts to about $108 million in 2015 dollars — just $5 million short of what Bush and his super PACs raised in one quarter. (Trump recently said he’d be open to a third-party run).

Steve Forbes spent $38.7 million in his 2000 run for the White House as a Republican, about $53.6 million in 2015 dollars. And plenty of other candidates have lasted far longer than they may have otherwise, thanks to one or two backers, like Newt Gingrich who had the support of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson in 2012.

Jim Oberweis, a Republican businessman and state senator from Illinois who has spent millions of his own money on campaigns for Congress, governor and most recently the Senate, said that self-financing should be seen as a last resort. He decided to spend more than $1.6 million of his own money to try to unseat Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in 2014, saying he “thought it was necessary to run a strong campaign.”

But when it comes to the idea of Trump pouring his own fortune into a presidential run, Oberweis dismissed the notion outright. “I’m not sure I understand what motivates Donald Trump,” said Oberweis. “I think this is more of an ego trip.”

Adam Lerner and Jon Prior contributed to this report.