Story highlights Donald Trump's campaign has increased the rent it pays the candidate to occupy his namesake tower

The campaign said the higher rent is because it needs more space

New York (CNN) Donald Trump's campaign is defending its reasoning for more than quadrupling what it pays to rent office space in the Republican presidential nominee's namesake tower, saying the higher rent comes from occupying more space.

Federal Election Commission filings show that the Republican nominee's campaign paid $169,758 in rent last month for space at the Manhattan skyscraper -- a dramatic jump from March, when the campaign paid Trump Tower LLC only $35,458 in rent.

The spike in rent, which was first reported by The Huffington Post , is a result of the campaign adding two more levels to its existing space, the campaign said Tuesday.

"We calculated the rent based on the average rent per square foot in the area," the campaign said in a statement provided to CNN.

"Overall, we still pay over $40,000 less in rent than the Clinton campaign," the statement added. "Also, Mr. Trump makes a personal contribution of $2 million per month to the campaign, obviously a much higher amount than rent."

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