Has Trump spent his election war chest before the war really starts?
More than $180,000 per second. That is what Donald Trump’s two TV ads during the Super Bowl worked out at in February, offering vivid proof of the outsized role of money in American politics – and of his re-election campaign’s premature and profligate spending.The 2020 presidential election has been described by both sides as the most important in living memory and is certainly proving the most expensive. Hundreds of millions of dollars have flooded both campaigns and, in the pandemic-enforced absence of shaking hands and kissing babies, may prove even more influential than usual.But while Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) raised a record $365m in August, it was revealed this week that the Trump campaign has surrendered what was once a $200m cash advantage. It has already spent more than $800m, the front page of the New York Times reported, leaving its coffers dangerously depleted for the critical final phase.“There’s so much about the Trump campaign that is unorthodox, ineffective and counterproductive: the fact they’ve spent their war chest before the war is an obvious example,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. Elections have long been a point of collision for two American ideals: democracy and capitalism. Whatever a candidate’s policies or eloquence, huge efforts go into elaborate, splashy fundraisers so they can spend on advertising and other expenses. In September 2018 the FiveThirtyEight website noted that, in the House of Representatives, more than nine in 10 candidates who spend the most win.In the 2016 election Trump and his allies raised about $600m, including $65m from his own pocket, a figure dwarfed by the $1bn taken in by rival Hillary Clinton and groups working on her behalf. But his unprecedented carnival-barker persona drew TV cameras like moths to a flame and gained the equivalent of $5bn in free advertising, according to the media tracking firm mediaQuant. Trump also outplayed Clinton on Facebook and staged rollicking campaign rallies in swing states that she could not match. More
