Thursday, October 27, 2016

The Donald Chronicles: Spent



Thursday was mostly about money, as campaign finance reports were issued.
The Washington Post:

Donald Trump raised about half as much as Hillary Clinton for his presidential campaign in the first 19 days of October, putting him at a severe financial disadvantage in the crucial final days of the White House contest, new campaign finance reports filed late Thursday show.

The Post also reports that the Clinton campaign has about $153 million on hand. This means, according to Politico: Hillary Clinton’s forces had nearly 2 ½ times more cash to burn than Donald Trump’s team over the campaign’s final three weeks...

Reuters reports:
In the crucial last weeks of the U.S. presidential campaign, Democrat Hillary Clinton has dramatically widened her advantage over Republican rival Donald Trump in ad spending, according to campaign finance reports released on Thursday.

The newest filings showed Clinton's campaign and Super PAC outspending Trump in the first three weeks of October by a factor of two to one on everything from national TV ads to local outreach on smartphone screens.

At the same time, the two Super PACs associated with Trump's White House bid have seen their fundraising start to stall out, with one of the groups reserving no broadcast or cable ads between Oct. 20 and Election Day, according to data from ad-tracking firm SMG Delta.

The New York Times:
Disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday revealed tens of millions of dollars in late donations and transfers to Republican “super PACs” focused on down-ballot races, suggesting a significant last-ditch effort to protect Senate and House candidates against Mrs. Clinton’s surge. Relatively little new money has come into outside groups supporting Mr. Trump.

Among those not donating to the Trump campaign are "basically anyone with the last name Trump, many of the surrogates who represent The Donald on national television, and members of his own campaign staff.”

And that list pretty much includes the Donald himself.  He tells his audiences he's giving $100 million to his campaign, but he's given just a little more than half of that.  This month he contributed no cash and less than $33,000 in whatever.

What money the Trump campaign continues to rake in is going less to the RNC, which is running his ground game operation.  Politico reports he transferred only $2.2 million to the RNC this month, which given the absurd costs of campaigning is very little.

Not that there weren't some names in the news.  Reports of unknowable reliability say Clinton wants Joe Biden for her secretary of state and John Podesta to reprise as chief of staff.  Republicans turning on each other may end up without Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House.  Even without a Dem majority, which handicappers say is increasingly remote.

And as a 12th victim of Trump's gropes emerges, a woman accuses Justice Clarence Thomas of the same crime, at an event in 1999.  You think maybe they should have listened to Anita Hill?

Poll news: New CNBC national poll has Hillary ahead by 9 points, which nearly doubles her lead from last month.

Thursday's state polls show Clinton essentially tied now in Iowa and Georgia, with Trump maintaining a lead in Texas of from 3 to 7 points. Polls announced today show 4 point Clinton leads in Florida and North Carolina.

And Clinton is doing rather well here in California.  She's leading by 26 points (up 10 points from September), with Trump getting 28% of the votes.  Some 88% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans are voting Clinton.  The two third party candidates get 5% each.

In voter suppression news, a Bloomberg Businessweek report quotes an unnamed Trump campaign official describing its three Democratic "voter suppression operations."

 Michelle Obama identified this very Trump campaign intention last week, and repeated it again Thursday as she urged supporters to thwart such efforts by voting, in a joint appearance with Hillary Clinton.  She rocked the crowd.  Michelle Obama is the Democrat's anti-voter-suppression operation.

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