Hillary Clinton has had a robust fundraising operation but is seeing new strength from Donald Trump in that regard. | AP Photo 2016 Trump fundraising sets off Clinton camp alarms 'We must redouble our efforts in the coming weeks,' a concerned Robby Mook writes.

NEW YORK — Taken aback by the size of Donald Trump’s July fundraising haul, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is quickly working to beef up its efforts to raise campaign cash before the fall — sending the candidate, running mate Tim Kaine, and former President Bill Clinton on an all-out financial sprint through August while explicitly warning top fundraisers this week that they need to pick up the pace.

In an internal memo, first obtained by POLITICO, that will be circulated to high-level donors on Monday morning, campaign manager Robby Mook specifically writes that the Republican nominee’s July haul overshot the campaign’s expectations, necessitating a new wave of action.


“Donald Trump also had his best fundraising month of the campaign, raising $80 million,” explains Mook in the roughly 750-word missive — titled “Wake Up Call” — after trumpeting Clinton’s own $90 million haul between the campaign and other Democratic committees. “This was far more than anyone expected — and should be a wake-up call to all Hillary supporters. We must redouble our efforts in the coming weeks."

Clinton has had a robust fundraising operation going since she launched her campaign in April 2015, allowing her to build up a cash stockpile of $58 million heading into August and funding campaign ads across the country that Trump has been unable or unwilling to match — that's in addition to the big-money efforts from her supportive super PACs. But Trump’s recent cash strength after months of not lifting a finger to raise money has given party leaders pause, particularly since — as Mook notes — Clinton’s cash pace is behind that of President Barack Obama four years ago.

“While we are very proud of the more than $469 million our campaign has raised so far, we remain behind the historic pace that President Obama set in 2012, raising $520 million during the same time frame. With only three months to go, it is critical that we close the gap between President Obama’s record-level fundraising and the pace we are currently on,” reads the memo. “Falling short of the resources raised in 2012 will require us to scale back from the investments President Obama’s campaign made in organizing, data and other critical tools."

To avoid such a fate while matched up against a Trump operation with $37 million on hand, the campaign is sending both Clintons and Kaine on a fast-paced fundraising tour of the country on top of their public campaigning. And while many of their events were scheduled prior to the release of Trump’s numbers, the campaign intends to use Trump’s figures to amp up the urgency among its fundraisers.

In August alone, the three campaign principals will headline over 80 finance events in more than 25 states, according to a schedule of the private events distributed to donors and obtained by POLITICO. The candidate herself will hit over 35, while Kaine will make it to more than 30 and the former president will headline somewhere around 20.

In just the next week, Hillary Clinton will hold two events in Florida, one in Illinois, one in Pennsylvania, and one in Connecticut. Bill Clinton will have one in Colorado, one in Utah and two in California. Kaine will hit three in Texas, one each in Louisiana and New Hampshire, and two in Rhode Island.

In addition, campaign surrogates will continue to headline their own fundraising events all over the world, while the Brooklyn-based team also looks to ramp up its online grass-roots operation. Both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are also expected to step up their fundraising on behalf of Clinton.

View Trump reports $35.8 million raised in July Donald Trump raised $35.8 million from small-dollar donors in July, the Republican nominee announced Monday, hours after the monthly Federal Elections Commission deadline.

Much of Mook’s pitch to wealthy Democrats is based around bolstering the campaign’s on-the-ground capabilities to end the summer, making the case that money raised in August is especially important — particularly given the campaign’s efforts to register 3 million voters before registration deadlines hit and early ballot distribution begins this fall.

“We have to make investments now in order to scale our organizing programs in time to be ready for GOTV. Our ability to reach targeted voters and turn them out will be decided by the number of organizers we can hire now and the volunteers they can start recruiting today,” he urges, making the segue to TV ads — of which Trump still has none, while Clinton and her supportive super PACs have blanketed battleground state airwaves for months. “Similarly, we know that television in the quieter month of August and in early September will do much more to cement the narrative of the campaign on our terms than in the last few weeks of the election. Simply put, a dollar raised in August has a much greater impact than one raised in October, especially if Trump closes the gap with us.”

Part of the Clinton team’s current task is to convince its fundraisers that the national polls showing Clinton up by double digits or high single digits are no reason to sit back and relax.

“The worst thing that could happen would be the campaign decides they’re seven or eight points up and people who are raising money stop being involved,” said Tom Nides, a former deputy secretary of state who remains close with Clinton and who’s been helping with the campaign’s fundraising efforts, predicting that Trump’s campaign coffers will continue to fill.

“Trump will get resources, there’s no question. They clearly understand that Trump is going to have the money he needs. For Trump, raising several hundred million dollars is going to be pretty important, so at the end of the day this campaign will not rest, and they shouldn’t."

The real estate developer was always expected to build up his fundraising capacity at some point in the campaign, but even veteran campaign financiers have expressed surprise at his strength online, a phenomenon that’s reminiscent — if hardly equal — to the Bernie Sanders cash machine that bedeviled the Clinton camp during the primary.

Clinton’s team has worked to build up its own capacities on this front. But Mook warned even that could be swamped by Trump’s rank-and-file supporters.

“While we have been working for more than a year to build and grow our grassroots support, Trump only recently started earnestly fundraising from small donors and has clearly seen significant growth in the last month,” he writes. “We anticipate that his grassroots donor support will continue to grow dramatically in the final three months. Trump also has the capacity to write his campaign an eight or nine figure check, which could single-handled tilt things in his favor."

