Trump Campaign Hemorrahages Money With Very Little Payoff

We know he isn’t spending money on ad buys.

It seems the alt-right candidate, heralded by his loyal followers for being a “great businessman” is bleeding a lot of cash with very little payoff.

Donald Trump’s campaign doubled its spending in July, even though the Republican nominee still only employed about 80 people, aired no television ads and maintained ties with his fired campaign manager and the writer who plagiarized part of his wife’s convention speech.

His campaign lags far behind that of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, whose team spent about twice as much as his did last month. Clinton also raised more funds, taking in $52m for her campaign and Democrats, according to July filings with the Federal Election Commission, while Trump raised $37m for his campaign and Republicans.

Reports are that the largest spending for the Trump campaign in July was on asking for more money, through online donations.

Trump is no longer “loaning” himself money, and is now seeking online donations. To that end, his team has employed Giles-Parscale, a Texas web design and marketing firm, paying them $8.4 million in July. Brad Parscale, the digital director for Trump’s campaign has also worked for Trump’s real estate company since 2011.

The campaign also paid former campaign manager (and current CNN commentator), Corey Lewandowski’s consulting firm $20,000.

The campaign also paid $356.01 to Meredith McIver, an employee of the Trump Organization who took the blame for plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s 2008 convention speech for use in Melania Trump’s 2016 speech. McIver is listed as a co-writer for several of Donald Trump’s books, and because of her work as an “in-house” writer for Trump’s private business, the campaign risked violating campaign laws if it had not separately paid her.

Though the financial documents show little sign that Trump has opened offices around swing states, Trump did show some signs of scaling up for the general election. He paid $100,000 to Cambridge Analytics, a data analysis firm that formerly worked for Senator Ted Cruz and has ties to Robert Mercer, a hedge fund billionaire who supports Trump. He also paid his Alabama state director, Chess Bedsole, $64,000, three times his last payment, in December, even though Alabama has voted Republican for decades.

Which makes a lot of sense. In Trumpland. Conventional wisdom would say resources should be funneled to areas where there needs to be more focus, but conventional wisdom is for cucks and RiNOs, apparently.

In a further rundown of Team Trump’s brilliant campaign spending, $2 million were spent on private jets, along with $500,000 for expenses on Trump’s private plane. There was $773,000 paid to companies owned by Trump last month, and a total, to date, of $7.5 million paid throughout the campaign to companies either owned by Trump or his family members.

Of the $18.5 million spent in July, $1.8 million were on those dumb hats and other merchandise.

#MAGA.

Clinton, in contrast, reported 703 staffers, $2m on travel and signs of new offices. In July, her campaign spent a total of $38m, filings show, mostly on advertising. Last week, Trump spent $4.8m on his first general election ads, which aired in four swing states.

It’s almost like she’s taking this campaign seriously.

Trump’s personal finances are still a mystery, since he claims an IRS audit prevents him from releasing them to the public. A recent New York Times story revealed that he’s around $650 million in debt to Goldman-Sachs and the Bank of China, but otherwise, he’s been very guarded with any further information, even though there’s no law saying he is prohibited from showing his returns while under audit.

Hillary Clinton released several years of her own tax returns. She and Bill aren’t doing too shabby, having amassed a small fortune over the years. In 2015 they made $11 million. Too bad they’re so entrenched with foreign governments and the down and dirty Clinton Foundation. The wink-nod is that they’ll stop accepting those donations, should Clinton win the presidency.

Clinton also enjoys the support of several billionaire-backed super pacs. Trump’s empty, raging rhetoric has turned off most reliable Republican backers, such as the Koch Brothers and Paul Singer, who prefer to spend on races down ballot.

Only Robert Mercer is willing to throw any change at Trump’s nightmare candidacy, and even though he funds Breitbart News and has that connection to Trump’s campaign through Stephen Bannon, who now serves as CEO of the campaign, he has so far only been willing to invest $2 million to a pro-Trump super pac.

No sense in throwing good money after bad, as they say.

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