Trump shatters GOP records with small donors

[toomuchtime_]

Donald Trump has unleashed an unprecedented deluge of small-dollar donations for the GOP, and one that Republican Party elders have dreamed about finding for much of the last decade as they’ve watched a succession of Democrats — Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and, to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton — develop formidable fundraising operations, $5, $10 and $20 at a time.

Trump has only been actively soliciting cash for a few months, but when he reveals his campaign’s financials later this week they will show he has crushed the total haul from small-dollar donors of the last two Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney — during the entirety of their campaigns.

All told, Trump is approaching, and has possibly already passed, $100 million from donors who have given less than $200, according to an analysis of available Federal Election Commission filings, the campaign’s public statements and people familiar with his fundraising operation. It is a threshold no previous Republican has ever achieved in a single campaign. And Trump has done so less than three months after signing his first email solicitation for donors on June 21 — a staggering speed to collect such a vast sum.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said a senior Republican operative who has worked closely with the campaign’s small-dollar fundraising operation. “He’s the Republican Obama in terms of online fundraising.”

Clinton counted 2.3 million donors as of the end of August, the result of decades of campaigning, a previous presidential bid and allies who painstakingly built her an email file of supporters even before she formally announced her second run. But Trump had zoomed to 2.1 million donors in the last three months alone, his campaign has said.

Trump shatters GOP records with small donors

Pretty amazing for a guy no one took seriously when he first announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination.

 

[mascale]

"It is impossible to piece together a complete picture of Trump’s finances due to different reporting deadlines for Trump’s various committees. But as of the end of July he had amassed $50 million in small contributions into his campaign, FEC records show. He has since announced he raised $90 million in August “mostly” from small donors both directly for his campaign and in joint committees shared with the Republican National Committee — suggesting at least $45 million raised last month came from small contributors. Additionally, there is some money from small contributors in those shared RNC accounts — Trump said there was $37 million still in them at the end of July — that he has helped raise.

"Trump’s success dwarfs his GOP predecessors. McCain and Romney, in 2008 and 2012, respectively, raised just less than $64 million in contributions under $200, according to FEC records (McCain, notably, accepted public funds in the 2008 general election)."

Trump still lags far behind the pace-setting Democrats. President Obama raised an enormous $483.6 million in contributions of less than $200 in 2012, FEC records show. Sanders raised almost $202 million in small donations just during the 2016 primary. And Clinton has raised almost $156 million in such contributions through the end of July, according to the FEC.

"Crow, James Crow: Shaken, Not Stirred!"
(Big donors--Not So Much!)