After last night, Donald Trump is the “presumptive” presidential nominee for the GOP. What that means is that the Republican party is now effectively operating under Pottery Barn rules: You broke it, you bought it, Trump supporters. Now it’s your job to get him elected. In theory, that shouldn’t be hard, because Trump supporters have been crowing about the record number of votes Trump’s accumulated in the primary. Trump and his supporters have been long been speculating about his sway with a “silent majority” that’s going to sweep him into office in November.
Suffice to say, that Trump’s argument for winning in November might be a tad over-simplified. Typically, money is the fuel that fires modern campaigns, and according to this metric, Trump is unlikely to be competitive. For one thing, fundraising is a responsibility that doesn’t look like it’s going to be widely shared by the entire GOP coalition. Aside from the Never Trump movement among grassroots voters, Trump’s polarizing path to victory has alienated a very necessary constituency in the party: big donors. At the Washington Examiner, David Drucker has done some preliminary reporting on financing a Trump campaign and things aren’t looking good:
