http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/trumps-campaign-dwarfed-by-clintons-223438 Trump's campaign dwarfed by Clinton's
New FEC reports show that the likely Democratic nominee will start with a huge infrastructure advantage.
By Kenneth P. Vogel and Isaac Arnsdorf
05/21/16 12:25 AM EDT
At the outset of the general election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign looks like a well-oiled juggernaut next to Donald Trump’s vastly smaller, self-funded operation, a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission reports filed Friday found.
Through the end of last month, the period covered by the most recent FEC filings, Trump’s campaign had spent less than a third as much Clinton’s ($57 million to $182 million) and had assembled a staff about one-tenth the size of her (70 employees to 732), with a fraction as many offices (Trump last month paid $101,000 in rent vs. $328,000 for Clinton), the analysis found.
Trump — a billionaire rookie candidate whose own money had accounted for 75 percent of the $59 million brought in by his campaign — is moving quickly to buttress his campaign operations, partly by launching a fundraising and field operation in coordination with the Republican National Committee.
He did little to assemble the trappings of a traditional campaign during a chaotic primary during which he dispatched 17 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, many of whom ran more traditional, and expensive, campaigns.
The $57 million Trump had spent through the end of April is only slightly more than the $54 million spent by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who dropped out of the race more than two months ago, and it’s far less than the $81 million spent by Ted Cruz. The Texas senator assembled a sophisticated micro-targeting machine that helped keep in the race until he dropped out this month, after being trounced by Trump in the Indiana primary.
Last month, as Trump was struggling to put away Cruz, Trump’s campaign spent $2.7 million on advertising, while Clinton spent $12 million on digital and broadcast media buys, as she worked to put away her rival for the Democratic nomination Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Yet Clinton’s campaign appeared to be preparing for the general election, spending far less than Sanders, whose $207 million in total spending marks him as the cycle’s biggest spender. He continued spending briskly in April, dropping $38.6 million, as compared to $23.9 million for Clinton. Sanders spent almost twice as much as Clinton on media and payroll (despite a slightly smaller staff), as well as more on online advertising and direct mail.
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