http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-is-getting-a-late-start-to-fundraising-1465341288Donald Trump Is Getting a Late Start on Fundraising
A Republican insider calls the candidate’s disadvantage ‘huge and not widely understood’By REID J. EPSTEIN, REBECCA BALLHAUS and BETH REINHARD
June 7, 2016 7:14 p.m. ET
Donald Trump will escalate his fundraising in the coming weeks, yet his late start has left him reliant on party fundraisers who haven’t all swung into action and aren’t always in sync with his campaign promises.
Several members of a list of prominent Republican fundraisers who Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee announced last month had signed on to work for their joint fundraising committee said they have yet to raise any money for the effort. “I agreed to lend my name,” said Howard Leach, who previously backed Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign and was listed as a “presidential trustee” for the committee.
Bill Binnie, who in 1990 was chairman and CEO of a plastics company that closed a California factory and moved the jobs to Mexico, will host a New Hampshire fundraiser on Monday for Mr. Trump, who has made railing against such relocations a centerpiece of his campaign. Meanwhile, real-estate investor Thomas Barrack, the host of the only major fundraiser Mr. Trump has attended since finalizing the RNC fundraising agreement, has also offered praise for the Democratic presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump took aim at the Clintons for turning "the politics of personal enrichment into an art form" during a speech on Tuesday. Photo: AP
Mr. Trump’s tardy fundraising start has some Republicans concerned he won’t be able to match the robust finance operation of Mrs. Clinton, who raised more than $240 million through May on top of $60 million for her joint committee with the Democratic National Committee. She has held at least 20 fundraisers for her campaign and joint committee since the start of May.
Mrs. Clinton had $42 million on hand at the end of May, her campaign said. Mr. Trump hasn’t reported his May figures but had $2.4 million at the end of April. The Democrat also has a super PAC that has raised more than $76 million.
Mr. Trump has seen several outside groups ramp up their activities in recent weeks, though they have raised just about $3 million so far. Casino owner Sheldon Adelson is also looking into creating a pro-Trump super PAC, though he hasn’t said how much he would donate to it.
Fred Malek, the finance chairman of the Republican Governors Association and a leading fundraiser for past GOP nominees, called Mr. Trump’s fundraising disadvantage “huge and not widely understood.” He added: “Unless he’s willing to write a huge personal check, which is unlikely, I believe Trump will have a financial disparity of $300 million to $500 million.”
His campaign has said the real-estate developer, who relied heavily on free media and mostly his personal bank accounts to fuel his primary bid, is running an unconventional campaign and may not need to raise as much as previous presidential candidates. And Mr. Trump will have some traditional Republican fundraisers hosting events in the coming weeks.
Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets and a top fundraiser for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, will host two events for Mr. Trump in New York later this month. Mr. Trump will also do a three-day fundraising swing through Texas, including in Dallas, San Antonio and Houston.
Some members of the Trump-RNC finance team have moved quickly to begin raising money. Dallas-based investor Ray Washburne, a former RNC finance chairman and a vice-chairman for the committee, said he has been helping the committee set up fundraisers. “To raise the kind of money you need to raise in the time period we’re raising it, you need people that are experienced at raising money,” he said. “We’ve had years and years and years of doing this.”
Mr. Trump’s fundraising pitch is complicated by the fact that he spent more than a year blasting political donors as tools of the establishment and arguing that he alone could be independent because he was subsidizing his campaign. In January, he sent a tweet mocking Mr. Johnson’s team and his support of Mr. Bush, writing, “If Woody would’ve been w/me, he would’ve been in the playoffs, at least!”
Each of the six top fundraisers listed as “vice-chairmen” for the Trump-RNC fundraising committee previously supported another presidential candidate, and several of the donors appeared unenthused about Mr. Trump. “It would appear that he’s going to be the nominee,” said Mr. Leach, the presidential trustee, who hadn’t donated to Mr. Trump’s campaign per the most recent records. “He was not at the outset the person I picked, but he has the support of the voters,” Mr. Leach said.
Llwyd Ecclestone, another presidential trustee, said, “There are no responsibilities put on me. They’re using us like a board of directors.” Asked what he would do for the committee, he said he planned to be “in and out” over the course of the summer, traveling and sailing. “I’ll do it by phone,” he said.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump has railed against businesses moving factories outside the U.S. and the laws and trade deals that allowed them to do so, vowing not to allow the practice as president. But Mr. Binnie, host of the coming New Hampshire event, was chief of Carlisle Plastics Inc. in 1990, when it closed a factory with more than 400 jobs and built a new 60,000-square-foot facility in Tijuana, Mexico. Moving the plant, according to the company’s 1991 annual report signed by Mr. Binnie, “will significantly lower the division’s operating costs.”
In a brief phone interview Monday, Mr. Binnie confirmed he is hosting a fundraiser for Mr. Trump. When asked if his own corporate history contradicts Mr. Trump’s vow to boost American manufacturing by instilling high tariffs on companies to move jobs overseas, Mr. Binnie hung up the phone without responding.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said Mr. Trump “looks forward” to attending Mr. Binnie’s fundraiser, which will also raise money for the Republican National Committee and 11 GOP state party organizations.
“Bill Binnie has created thousands of private sector jobs throughout his career and currently operates several major businesses in New Hampshire employing hundreds of residents,” Ms. Hicks said. “Mr. Trump looks forward to working with people like Bill to ensure jobs stay in our country and job creation is a top priority for all.”
Mr. Binnie’s corporate history played a significant role in his 2010 Senate race, when he lost a GOP primary to now-Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who attacked him for his statements in support of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and in opposition to the Arizona law targeting illegal immigrants—both issues on which Mr. Trump, who pledges to build a wall on the Mexican border to restrict immigration, holds the opposite view. Ms. Ayotte, who faces re-election herself this year, has said she would vote for Mr. Trump in November but wouldn’t endorse his candidacy.
In 1996, Mr. Binnie sold Carlisle Plastics to Tyco International Inc., for stock valued at $121 million. He now operates an investment firm in Portsmouth, N.H., and a local television station, which he has said he started after being frustrated with how the local media covered his 2010 Senate race.
