Donald Trump spent a lot of money to raise money last month. The Republican candidate spent $18.5 million in July, more than doubling the previous month. But it turns out much of that went to fundraising efforts and not into building the type of on-the-ground operations in battleground states that have traditionally been needed to win the presidency. Almost half of the campaign’s spending in July went to Giles-Parscale, a web-design and marketing firm that doesn’t have much experience in national politics. The firm’s president does have experience working with Trump though; he is the digital director of Trump’s presidential campaign and has worked with the candidate’s real estate business since 2011.
Another eyebrow-raising item from the campaign’s financial disclosure form is how Trump paid $20,000 to the consulting firm of Corey Lewandowski, the campaign manager he fired in June but later continued to call on for advice.* Yet despite a few highly paid consultants, spending on payroll remained weak, and there were no suggestions that the candidate had spent money to boost his presence in battleground states. That may very well change in the next report, considering Trump’s campaign said it had hired dozens of more people starting on Aug. 1.
Even if it doubled from the previous month, Trump still falls far short of Hillary Clinton, who spent $38.2 million in July in part to maintain a staff of 703, compared to Trump’s 83. And it isn’t that Clinton is some sort of big spender. Trump falls behind other nominees in recent elections, too. In July of 2012, for example, President Obama’s campaign spent almost $59 million, compared to Mitt Romney’s $33 million. And four years before that, Obama had spent $57 million, compared to Sen. John McCain’s $32 million.
*Correction, Aug. 23, 2016: This post originally misspelled Corey Lewandowski’s last name.
