Donald Trump Has Effectively Given Up

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 28, 2016 |

The last fundraiser that Donald Trump had scheduled for this campaign was supposed to be headlined by Mike Pence last night, but it was cancelled after Pence’s plane skidded off the tarmac at LaGuardia airport (no one was injured). It’s an apt metaphor for Trump’s campaign at this point: It has skidded off the tarmac, and Trump is not even interested in trying to save it (there were no injuries, unless you count the American political system and a toxic cultural climate that may hang over this country for years to come).

Through the first 19 days of October, here’s how Donald Trump’s fundraising breaks down (COH is Cash On Hand):

JUST IN — Trump:



Raised: $30.5 million

Spent: $49.3 million

COH: $16 million — Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) October 28, 2016

Compare that to Hillary’s fundraising efforts:

Just in — Hillary Clinton fundraising.



Raised: $52.8 million

Spent: $50.0 million

On hand: $62.4 million



From Oct. 1 to Oct. 19. — Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) October 27, 2016

In other words, with two weeks to go, Hillary has $62 million to spend, and Donald Trump has $16 million to spend (after spending more than he raised in October).

Compare Trump’s cash on hand at this point in the campaign to his Republican predecessors:

At this point in the election:



Bush '00 had $22.3M left

Bush '04 had $22.4M

McCain '08 had $21.3M

Romney '12 had $52.7M

Trump has $16M — Dave Levinthal (@davelevinthal) October 28, 2016

Of course, Donald Trump is a very wealthy man, right? And if he had any confidence in his campaign, he’d follow through on his promise to spend $100 million self-funding his campaign. At this point, he’s only spent $56 million of his own money, so if he kicked in $44 million of his own money as he had promised to do, he’d have about the same amount of cash on hand that Hillary has for the last two weeks.

So, what does Trump do?

He gives himself a lousy $31,000.

Trump gave virtully NO MONEY in October so far — a measly $31,000. https://t.co/Q98wW29lcQ — Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) October 28, 2016

Even Hillary Clinton gave more money to her campaign ($50,000) than Donald Trump did in October.

I don’t have much faith in Donald Trump’s business sense, but he is smart enough to figure one thing out: He’s a bad investment, and not even Donald Trump is interested in throwing money into a sinkhole as he enters the home stretch.

Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.