“It’s just too much money,” Chris Lippincott said about President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 campaign war chest. As the Texas-based Democrat strategist told Politico: “The resources he has will be put to work anywhere and everywhere that he feels like he can scare up electoral votes, and Democrats will never catch up.”
Lippincott and other Democrats should worry. Trump and the GOP are awash in cash. They have raised north of $300 million for next year’s re-election effort and enjoy $158 million in available funds — more than any other incumbent president at this date on the electoral calendar. This also puts the president miles ahead of Democrats Elizabeth Warren, who has $26 million in the bank, and Joe Biden, who wheezes along with just $9 million in his strong box.
Likewise, the Republican National Committee boasts $54 million in the till, nearly seven times the $8 million on which the Democrat National Committee sits. Former South Carolina Democrat Party chairman Dick Harpootlian seems disappointed with the fundraising prowess of his party’s national chairman: “Tom Perez is as useless as tits on a boar hog.”
This enormous monetary boost also has a huge human benefit. It would be helpful enough if Trump simply had transferred $300 million from his personal account onto his campaign ledger. But it gets even better. As Politico observed, “The campaign netted 313,000 new donors between July and the end of September, according to numbers provided by the RNC.”
So, nearly one-third of a million first-time, small-dollar contributors have invested in four more years of President Trump. Above and beyond their greenbacks, Team Trump now has the contact information for these Americans. Come fall 2020, it should be easy for the Trump campaign to recruit hundreds of thousands of these people to knock on doors, distribute literature, install lawn signs, man phone banks, and drive people to the polls on Election Day.
With voters headed to the polls in a year and a fortnight, President Trump enjoys both a serious financial advantage and this enviable grassroots asset.
New York political commentor Deroy Murdock is a Fox News contributor and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.
