While the frontrunners in the Democratic race to become his challenger posted impressive fundraising numbers for the last quarter of 2019, as I reported last week, President Trump and the Republican National Committee posted some impressive numbers of their own:
The Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and their associated groups brought in more than $154 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, ending the year with nearly $195 million in the bank.
The massive haul includes roughly $46 million raised by the Trump campaign alone in the last three months. The RNC raked in $72.3 million in that same period. The other groups raising money toward the president’s reelection effort include two joint fundraising committees: Trump Victory and the Trump Make America Great Again Committe.
Together, those four groups took in $463.6 million in 2019, outpacing any current presidential candidate in the Democratic primary field and former President Obama’s fundraising at the same point in his 2012 reelection bid.
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The latest fundraising haul from the Trump campaign, RNC and joint fundraising committees means President Trump enters 2020 with a record-setting cash stockpile to draw from as he embarks on his bid for a second term in the Oval Office. The money will also go to helping Republicans down ballot as the party seeks to hold its majority in the Senate and recapture the House.
“President Trump’s campaign and the RNC are working hand-in-hand to re-elect the President and help Republican candidates up and down the ballot,” Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said in a statement.
“The President’s record of accomplishment has inspired unprecedented grassroots support which will translate to his own re-election and resounding victories for Republicans from coast to coast.”
The massive Republican haul for the fourth quarter was driven, at least in part, by House Democrats’ efforts to impeach the president for pressuring Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden, one of his top political rivals, and his family.
Since the impeachment efforts began in September, the Trump campaign, RNC, Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again Committee gained roughly 600,000 new digital and direct mail contributors, according to an RNC official.
The extent to which the President is relying on fundraising for his re-election campaign stands in marked contrast to the 2016 campaign. During that campaign, Trump did not really engage in much high-dollar fundraising and did not have a very aggressive fundraising strategy during the fight for the Republican nomination. Instead, he relied on self-funding and free media to push his campaign forward, a strategy that was astoundingly successful considering the money that other candidates for the nomination were raising. That strategy shifted, of course, after Trump became the Republican nominee and was actually running for the nomination, of course. During that period, Trump’s free media appearances became more limited and selective while the fundraising effort picked up steam as the Republican Party elites that had previously distanced themselves from Trump rallied behind him to defeat Hillary Clinton.
The most important thing about this fundraising by the Trump campaign, though, is three-fold. First of all, it dwarfs the total fundraising by the Democratic candidates for President notwithstanding the obvious enthusiasm on that side of the fence for getting him out of office. Indeed, the Trump campaign and the GOP ended the year with more cash on hand than the Democratic candidates for President had raised for the fourth quarter. Second, it comes at the end of a year in which the Trump campaign and the GOP have managed to bring in record amounts of cash quarter after quarter to the point where they have raised nearly a combined half a billion dollars throughout the entire year. Finally, the biggest difference between the money Trump and the GOP are raising and what the Democrats are raising is that virtually of these funds will be available for the General Election campaign. While he may have token opposition for the GOP nomination, Trump does not need to spend significant amounts of money on the primary campaign and can instead use hold onto these funds for the General Election, or use them to fund spending that is aimed at laying the groundwork for that campaign.
All of this is a long way of saying that taking on Trump and the GOP in the fall is not going to be a cakewalk for the Democrats. They are likely going to be out-fundraised and outspent by Trump and the GOP. Whether that will be enough to make up for Trump’s disadvantages remains to be seen, but it is yet another reason for Democrats to not assume that defeating even a deeply unpopular President is going to be easy.
