Donald Trump just doesn’t have the money

| 6:00 pm EDT October 21, 2020
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

It’s tough to say precisely where the Donald Trump 2020 campaign’s finances are right now, because monthly campaign filings are a lagging indicator that are three weeks old by the time they’re made public. But we do know this: as of the start of October, the Trump campaign was in some pretty terrible financial shape. And there’s no reason to believe things have gotten better.

During the course of September we saw one report after another of the Trump 2020 campaign canceling TV ad buys at the last minute. The only reason to do this is to save money. Yet new filings reveal that at the end of September, the Trump campaign still only had about one-third as much cash on hand as the Joe Biden campaign had. So Trump’s ad spending cuts weren’t about trying to build up a war chest for the final days of the campaign. Instead it was about not having enough money to begin with.

The Trump campaign is still canceling TV ad buys in key swing states as recently as this week, suggesting the money situation hasn’t gotten any better. Trump recently got a $75 million donation from Sheldon Adelson, and his Orange County fundraiser last week likely brought in a decent haul. But when you consider that the Biden campaign is raising about $75 million per week through normal fundraising channels, it’s easy to see why Trump just can’t keep up.

It gets even worse for Donald Trump. It’s bad enough that his campaign is too broke to properly run TV ads. But remember when he vowed to bail out his campaign with his own money? Politico says that during the entire 2020 election cycle, Trump has only donated a total of $8,000 to his campaign. That’s not a typo. In other words, Trump doesn’t have the money to bail out his campaign.

Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.