Trump lacks the money to self-finance, subjecting himself to the same pressures he has claimed to abhor. https://t.co/ZVzLTiMiw0
— Steve LeVine (@stevelevine) May 15, 2016
Well, the reactions to this analysis should be interesting. The Wall Street Journal goes there — “As Trump moves to raise big sums, an estimate of his 2016 income shows it short of the big money needed for general election run”:
… When his campaign began last summer, a financial disclosure Mr. Trump filed said he had between about $78 million and $232 million in cash and relatively liquid assets such as stocks and bonds.
That would go fast if Mr. Trump spent an amount close to the $721 million President Barack Obama spent in 2012 up to Election Day, or the $449 million Mitt Romney spent in the same stretch.
This would leave hundreds of millions to be made up. And Mr. Trump’s businesses don’t produce that much in a year, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows. His 2016 pretax income, according to the analysis, is likely to be around $160 million.…
The Journal analysis is based on 170 items of “employment assets and income,” such as real estate, golf courses, management companies and licensing deals, listed in the financial disclosure form Mr. Trump filed last July. The Journal estimated how much pretax income each item should yield this year, relying on public documents and interviews with dozens of former and current Trump Organization executives and people who are familiar with his businesses.
In the absence of Mr. Trump’s tax returns, which he has declined to release, the analysis helps answer a question many wonder about: just how much the candidate earns…
The cash issue looms now because the political season is growing more expensive. The Trump campaign spent about 50% more in March than in February, facing higher expenses for field workers, telemarketing and voter-data operations.
Mr. Trump noted that once the general election campaign begins, the Republican National Committee will be spending heavily on his behalf. The RNC spent $386 million during the 2012 presidential campaign. A clutch of other entities such as political-action committees spent $419 million to back Mr. Romney.
This year, officials at some big Republican PACs are saying they are going to turn their funds toward keeping the Senate and House in the Republican hands, meaning their support for Mr. Trump could be diminished.
On the other hand, legal changes since 2012 make it possible for political parties to raise larger individual donations, via joint fundraising committees with their presidential candidates. Such a joint fundraising committee is what Mr. Trump said in early May that he planned to set up with the Republican Party…
And aren’t the Permanent Repub Party bigwigs with their hands on the purse strings — not to mention the ones required to fill that purse — going to enjoy giving the short-fingered vulgarian their money to waste on futilely challenging Hillary Clinton?
The whole article (I found it by Googling its title) is replete with the sort of details that will fascinate wonks, but it reinforces what non-Trump-partisan observers have been saying since Deadbeat Donald first rode that gilded escalator to announce his run: While $160 million (more or less) would be a more-than-satisfactory income to you or me or most normal human beings, it’s nowhere near enough to qualify Trump for “Really Rich Person” status. Assuming he started this shitshow in the first place to enhance his brand/salve his Obama-wounded feelings/bigly assert his yoooge hand size, the media response to this it will not be fun for him. Watching his noisy rage should provide some tasty schadenfreude for the rest of us, though!
Is Trump Lying About His Bankroll Size, Too?Post + Comments (140)