Yesterday, the world learned the Donald Trump campaign is running for president on fumes. Whether you chalk it up to inexperience, inattention, or self-sabotage, the Trump campaign was alarmingly close to having zero dollars at the end of May, according to the campaign FEC filing. To make matters worse, Team Trump hadn’t bothered to raise much either. So Trump did what any good politician would do (and probably would have done sooner): He started asking people for money.
On Tuesday, the Trump campaign sent, what it’s describing as its first fundraising email. As such, the subject line reads: “The first one.” “That’s right. The FIRST ONE,” the email goes on to enthuse. Boom. Trump’s in it to win it and he’s going to be ponying up some cash too. “I’m going to help make it the most successful introductory fundraising email in modern political history by personally matching every dollar that comes in WITHIN THE NEXT 48 HOURS…”*
* “…up to $2 million!”
**Let’s not get crazy.
***He’s just one man.
So there we have it, Donald Trump is asking people for money. It wouldn’t have been that interesting of a development really, other than Trump’s grand initial claims of self-funding and his apparent inability to do so. Also, since Trump’s bloviating is so effective at making you forget the question, much less his asnwer, his campaign financial filings are the truest (only?) data that exists on Trump.
It will be interesting to see if the email moves the needle. Surely, he’s using the RNC list, and will raise a few million bucks, but sending out an email isn’t nearly enough, for obvious reasons. Like it or not, there’s an entire ecosystem that’s grown to support the multi-billion dollar industry of political fundraising in America because it wins elections. The email shows Trump is aware of his money problem, but it’s far from an indication he’s willing to do what it takes to fix it.
Here’s more from Trump’s maiden email fundraising voyage:
