Trump's cash woes mount as Biden laps him

[Rogue Valley]

Trump's cash woes mount as Biden laps him

10/21/20
President Donald Trump’s campaign finance problems are even worse than they looked a few weeks ago. Joe Biden’s campaign outraised Trump’s by an eye-catching $200 million in September and started October with $177 million in the bank. That's a nearly 3-to-1 edge over Trump’s $63 million, putting Trump at a deficit without parallel in the modern era of campaign financing, especially for a sitting president. The last incumbent to face reelection, Barack Obama, had nearly $100 million left to spend at this point in 2012, while his challenger, Mitt Romney, had almost exactly the amount Trump has left this year. Altogether, including the campaigns, national parties and affiliated fundraising committees, Biden announced a cash edge of $432 million to Trump’s $251 million earlier this month, but the campaign-to-campaign comparison is important — and even more stark. Simply put, Biden has more money and fewer restrictions on how he can spend it at the most critical moment of the presidential election, with tens of millions of people already voting. The wide fundraising disparity is translating into a significant spending gap favoring Biden. Trump has cut back his TV ad reservations in key states and is being vastly outspent in other battlegrounds, a turn of events that would have seemed unlikely at best in March, when had a nine-figure cash edge over Biden as the former vice president emerged from a contested Democratic primary.

“The obstacles to victory are mounting and the clock is ticking,” said Ken Spain, a Republican consultant. “It will likely take a political earthquake to change the trajectory of this race.” Biden’s campaign raised $282 million in September to Trump’s $81 million, not only building up more cash in reserve but sending his spending into overdrive, outstripping Trump. On TV ads in September, Biden outspent Trump more than 2-to-1, $173 million to $69 million, according to Advertising Analytics, a media tracking firm. Eighty percent of Trump’s campaign spending in September — more than $100 million, out of a total of $125 million — was channeled through American Made Media Consultants LLC, a company that FEC filings describe as responsible for making and placing TV and digital ads for the campaign. But FEC filings do not shed any more light on how that money was spent, as AMMC is not required to disclose its subcontractors. That means few public details on how Trump’s spending habits have changed in recent months. Trump’s filings in August also showed three-quarters of the cash he spent going through AMMC. The group is the subject of a finance complaint for allegedly acting as a “pass-through” entity to obscure campaign disbursements, filed by the Campaign Legal Center.

What has really crippled the Trump campaign is the $100 million provided to the Biden campaign by Michael Bloomberg for use in Florida. A key battleground state that Trump won in 2016, polls show Trump and Biden in a virtual tie there. If Trump is to have any hope of winning in 2020, he must again take Florida. But that means that the Trump campaign must spend the remaining campaign money there. This frees up the Biden campaign to spend more in Georgia, Texas, Arizona, and the Rust Belt/Midwestern battleground states. This was Bloomberg's original strategy, to pin down Trump campaign spending in Florida which has severely hamstrung Trump campaign spending elsewhere. For example, Biden is outspending Trump 3:1 in Pennsylvania.