Donald Trump’s staggering failure to raise money in May could set back his presidential campaign and endanger members of his party running down ticket.
The presumptive Republican nominee ended the month of May with a paltry $1.2 million to spend against Democrat Hillary Clinton, who entered June with $42 million in the bank.
As the Republican National Committee tries to fill the gap, it leaves the party with fewer resources to invest in congressional and gubernatorial races.
That could be a big problem for the GOP’s vulnerable majority in the U.S. Senate. The Democrats need to win five seats to control the chamber next year, and at least that many Republican seats are up for election in blue states and battlegrounds.
The RNC was already shouldering much of Trump’s campaign infrastructure. This national party had always planned to assume a larger role in the nominee’s ground game this year, but the New York businessman also committed to a shoestring operation that outsourced voter turnout and data analytics to the RNC.
“The money that helps the presidential campaign helps the down-ballot races too, so when you lose money for the top of the ticket, you’re losing it for the down-ballots, too,” said Sarah Isgur Flores, former deputy campaign manager for Carly Fiorina.
Trump’s fundraising weakness could also hurt the RNC’s ability to collect its own contributions, crippling candidates who are already struggling to find ways to run with the controversial figure at the top of the ticket.
Reince Priebus, chairman of the RNC, told the Washington Examiner earlier this month that Trump’s campaign would not soak up all of the committee’s resources.
“One hundred percent,” Priebus said when asked if there will be enough resources for down-ballot candidates. “We’ve been prioritizing down ballot for three and a half years now.”
“If we need more resources for Ron Johnson in Wisconsin we’re going to get it. If we need more for Rob Portman we’re going to get it, or Kelly Ayotte, we’re going to get the money and we’re going to put it in there,” Priebus said, emphasizing the expansion of the RNC’s field program since 2012. “Four years ago, we had two full-time people in Ohio in May of 2012. Today we’ve got 53. You don’t think that’s a direct benefit to Rob Portman?”
But vulnerable Senate candidates, such as Johnson in Wisconsin, Ayotte in New Hampshire and Portman in Ohio, could still see less money for their campaigns than they would if Trump’s financial operation was healthy.
Because the RNC will be focused on ensuring Trump is competitive in traditional battleground states, Isgur Flores noted, the committee could shy away from devoting funds and field work to states where a Republican victory is uncertain.
“When you have to fight hard in states that should have been easy … you pull out of states that you might have been able to go into before,” she said.
“Colorado and Nevada are potential pickups for Republicans, but if you’re worrying about shoring up a presidential campaign, you don’t have a lot of resources to put into states that you don’t think Donald Trump has a realistic shot at getting,” Isgur Flores added.
Trump raised roughly $3 million last month, according to Federal Election Commission filings. By comparison, Mitt Romney raised more than $23 million in May 2012.
At least 76 members of Congress have more cash on hand than the Trump campaign, from high-profile members such as House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. to little-known names such as Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky.
Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, raked in $28 million last month. The presumptive Democratic nominee presently has about 32 times more money at her disposal than Trump has in the bank.
The real estate mogul’s stated intention to drum up $500 million in campaign contributions for the general election is a “pie in the sky” goal, said Doug Heye, a former RNC communications director.
“He doesn’t have a finance team,” Heye said. “He just put out his first fundraising email.”
Fractures within the GOP are preventing party stalwarts from falling in line behind Trump as they did at the end of hard-fought primaries in 2008 and 2012, Heye said.
“It’s not just on the operative side, which is obviously true,” he explained. “There are less people who just want to go work for Trump. But it’s also clearly affecting his finance side.”
Trump reportedly has just 69 operatives on his campaign payroll, while the Clinton campaign employs 685.
Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist, said Trump’s skeletal staff numbers are nowhere near the levels needed to launch an effective campaign.
“That’s about enough to win the state of Florida, let alone eight or nine battleground states,” O’Connell said. “Obviously, they’re hoping that the RNC is going to pretty much pick up that part of the campaign.”
O’Connell noted down-ballot candidates in electorally significant states, such as Ohio and Virginia, could benefit from the fact that the RNC will be pumping in resources on behalf of Trump.
But down-ballot candidates in reliably blue states, where Trump has no chance of victory, could feel particularly abandoned by the Republican Party as the already cash-strapped RNC focuses only on states that could help the nominee.
“It’s like top-down economics,” O’Connell said of the RNC’s allocation of funding and staff. “It just all depends whether or not you’re in the presidential electoral mix.”
Portman and Ayotte could reap the benefits of an RNC push in their respective states, O’Connell explained, while Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois is “in a dead-man-walking position” given that the party is unlikely to sink resources into a state Clinton will ultimately win.
With split-ticket voting nearing historic lows, most House and Senate candidates cannot hope to outperform their party’s nominee by more than a few points in their home state.
One GOP operative focused on House races said the RNC has already deployed dozens of staffers to vulnerable districts, a move that could ultimately spare down-ballot candidates from feeling the impact of Trump’s financial deficit.
“It’s not a zero-sum game,” said another GOP operative of the RNC’s dual focus on the presidential and congressional races. “It’s not like they’ll hire Trump people instead of down-ballot people — it’s more like they’ll hire fewer of all of those.”
As Trump languishes in fundraising numbers more familiar to a congressional campaign than a presidential, Clinton has already begun an advertising assault against him in key swing states.
Heye warned Trump runs the risk of “becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy” if he fails to shake up his finance operation.
“He can’t raise any money because his polls are bad. Because he’s not raising money, he’s not going on the air or building a field staff or doing things the campaigns need to do, his poll numbers suffer and his fundraising numbers suffer more,” Heye said.
“The challenge that [the RNC faces] is, they’ve been put in a position where they have to pick up the slack for a campaign that doesn’t exist.”
