Donald Trump went back to the well of his “self-funding” strategy Tuesday, lamenting that voters haven’t given him kudos for one of his campaign’s central boasts.
“I don’t believe I have been given any credit by the voters for self-funding my campaign, the only one,” he tweeted. “I will keep doing, but not worth it!”
Although Trump does fund his own campaign — he reported $10.8 million of self-financing the last quarter of 2015 — he doesn’t back it by himself. Past filings with the Federal Election Commission have revealed millions of dollars of donations to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., and he disclosed about $2.6 million of individual contributions between October and December.
Trump also said he spent little money on campaigning in Iowa because he was “told” he could not do well there. Of 63 Iowa polls since Trump launched his candidacy in June, though, he led outright in 40 of them.
He also took time Tuesday to frame his runner-up finish in the state as a true underdog story, saying the result was a “long shot”.
“The media has not covered my long-shot great finish in Iowa fairly,” he lamented. “Brought in record voters and got second highest vote total in history!”
There’s little argument on that last point. Republicans eclipsed their previous record for turnout by 50 percent, with an estimated 180,000 caucus goers Monday, the Des Moines Register reports. The previous attendance record was 121,503 in 2012. And as THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s Ethan Epstein notes, Trump actually “won 15,000 more votes than Rick Santorum did when the former senator won 2012’s caucus.”
