Donald Trump’s finance chairman said Tuesday that the GOP nominee’s last high-dollar fundraiser to benefit his campaign and the Republican National Committee’s field efforts was held before the final debate last week, and Trump will now focus solely on “political events” in the remaining two weeks of the election.
“We’ve kind of wound down,” Steven Mnuchin said of the Trump campaign’s high-dollar fundraising operation in an interview with the Washington Post. “We have minimized his fundraising schedule over the last month to emphasize his focus on political [events].”
“Unlike Hillary, who has been fundraising and not out and about, he has constantly been out and about,” Mnuchin added.
Clinton, who will hold her final fundraiser in Miami on Tuesday, has kept a full schedule of campaign appearances since the third presidential debate last Wednesday, while also deploying a number of high-profile surrogates to continue to court donors on the side. Unlike Trump, however, the former secretary of state’s expansive campaign operation means she is far less reliant on her own party’s get-out-the-vote apparatus.
Though Trump will no longer be attending glitzy fundraisers hosted by his campaign and the RNC’s Trump Victory fund, Mnuchin hinted at the possibility that Trump surrogates like the billionaire’s son, Don Jr., might still appear at some events. However, at the moment, Mnuchin said “there is virtually nothing planned.”
Trump’s senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, said all of the campaign’s fundraising, including its Victory committee with the RNC, “is going strong” and will continue through the election.
Despite the Post’s report, it would not be unusual for Trump to forego attending additional fundraisers at this point in the election. Former GOP nominee Mitt Romney, for example, attended his final fundraiser on Oct. 20, 2012, around the same time Mnuchin said Trump’s final fundraiser event occurred.
Furthermore, the RNC’s fundraising for Trump and down-ballot candidates will not cease because the party’s nominee is choosing to focus his time on speaking to voters as opposed to donors.
Lindsey Walters, a spokeswoman for the committee said, “the RNC [will] continue to fundraise for the entire GOP ticket” up until Election Day. The Trump campaign will also continue to solicit donations from supporters online, through which it has already raised more than $100 million.
“We couldn’t be more pleased with how the fundraising has gone,” Mnuchin said, noting that the campaign reached out to major donors after the third and final debate last Wednesday and that Trump himself “has been very supportive of the campaign with his [own] contributions.”
