http://hotair.com/archives/2016/10/25/report-trump-campaign-ends-big-money-fundraising-operations-leaving-rnc-lurch/Report: Trump campaign all but ends big-money fundraising operations, leaving the RNC in the lurch; Update: Retreat?POSTED AT 6:01 PM ON OCTOBER 25, 2016 BY ALLAHPUNDIT
Why spend the final few weeks schmoozing with fatcats, the campaign insists, when Trump and his top surrogates could spend the time holding rallies and events instead? The answer: Because the RNC, which, by the way, is running Trump’s ground game and desperately trying to keep downballot Republicans afloat, needs the money from those fatcats to keep things humming along. Trump’s own campaign might be able to get by on money raised through small donations online, but the RNC gets only a small cut of those funds. Reince Priebus and company are going to have to go begging donors for money now without help from the nominee.
If you were worried that Trump would spend the home stretch of the election thinking about himself rather than the party at large, yep, you were right to worry:
Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s national finance chairman, said in an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday that Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee between the party and the campaign, held its last formal fundraiser on Oct. 19. The luncheon was in Las Vegas on the day of the final presidential debate…
Mnuchin said the Trump campaign decided to keep the candidate’s final weeks focused on taking his message to the voters in person rather than on raising money. There may be a handful of events in coming days featuring Trump surrogates, including his son Donald Jr., according to people familiar with the internal discussions. But Mnuchin said “there is virtually nothing planned.”…
Mnuchin said Trump does not need high-dollar fundraisers because his campaign is being buoyed by online donations, which he said are on track to hit a new record in October…
[T]he RNC gets only 20 percent of the money that Trump raises online in conjunction with the party, while the vast majority of the big checks contributed to Trump Victory are routed to the party.
Clinton’s holding the last event for her own joint fundraising committee that she’ll personally attend tonight in Miami but the committee will keep going with other big-name surrogates like Tim Kaine participating over the last few weeks. Trump’s committee, it sounds like, is more or less done. The best spin you can put on that is that he really does believe he has a chance to pull the upset next month but thinks it’ll take an all-hands-on-deck effort from his entire team to get there, so much so that they simply can’t spare time to help the party anymore. The worst spin you can put on it is that he believes, barring a miracle, that the race is over and therefore he’s not devoting any more energy to helping a party that he always viewed as little more than a vehicle for his personal ambitions, not a congregation of ideological comrades-in-arms. Either way, the RNC running low on funds in the final week could be a gamechanger in close races:
Follow
Jessica Taylor ✔ @JessicaTaylor
A big reason Senate R's don't feel great abt toss-up races is b/c they'll be swamped w/$ in final days. Trump turning off spigot won't help
4:23 PM - 25 Oct 2016
10 10 Retweets 24 24 likes
more at link
