As more and more Republican conservatives start endorsing and worshiping Donald Trump, instead of laughing at him, so do wealthy tycoons. Although Trump is now the Republican presumptive presidential nominee, there’s one thing that he’s miles behind his challenger for the White House – campaign money for general election.
Mr. Trump, who by the end of March had spent around US$46 million of his fortune, has said that he may need as much as US$1.5 billion for the remaining days of his campaign against Hillary Clinton. But why does he need billions when he only needed tens of millions to win? That’s because he was fighting the primaries all this while, not “general election”.
The good thing about the primary campaigns is that they come in sequence, meaning you can concentrate on one state, or a group of states, at a time. Hence, you spend small amount of money at any one time. And if you think you’re losing or don’t feel like winning, you can always cut lost and stop your campaign machinery, which doesn’t really cost that much.
Frankly, Trump had spent very little on his campaign on primaries. For US$46 million, the money was very well spent, an excellent ROI (return on investment), as compared to colleague Republican Ted Cruz who had burnt US$70 million. Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have spent US$150 million – each – so far.
Trump could spend so little because he didn’t throw good money after bad – expensive TV ads and campaign staff. Thanks to his celebrity status from reality TV star, he has run a campaign based largely on free media coverage and big rallies. Now that the self proclaimed “very rich” Donald Trump has emerged the Republican winner, he’s looking at the general election.
Unlike primaries, general election in the United States is a serious business, which requires serious money, because it’s a nationwide election in a single pop. Running a campaign spread throughout the whole country takes a much larger and complicated organization. In comparison, Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign spent US$721 million.
It appears Donald Trump might not have imagined that he would get this far because he suddenly realises he’s in need of money, lots of them. For the next 6-month, Trump needs to spend on a machine the size of at least 1,000 paid staffs on his presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has a fundraising network a few decades in the making.
Trump’s unexpected triumph doesn’t mean all those millionaires and billionaires who were laughing and calling him a buffoon initially will suddenly make a U-turn and start throwing money for him. After having flushed a couple hundred million dollars down the toilet trying to defeat Trump in the primaries, some billionaires are planning to spend it elsewhere.
The Koch family – Charles and David Koch – who had earlier pledged to burn close to US$1 billion helping a Republican nominee get elected, are now saying they’ll spend the money on helping Republicans get elected to Congress instead – not on the presidential race. Fortunately to Trump, not all billionaires are betting against him.
Apparently, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is reportedly had a secret meeting with Donald Trump last week, promising to dump at least US$100 million to help Trump get elected. Mr. Adelson, a Las Vegas-based billionaire, has decided to significantly scale back his donation to congressional Republicans and direct most of his contributions to Mr. Trump’s campaign.
The leak from two Republicans, however, fails to explain how such truckloads of money could go direct to Trump’s campaign machinery without going through super PAC. Super PACs are a relatively new type of committee that arose following the July 2010 federal court decision in a case known as SpeechNow.org-versus-Federal Election Commission.
Only super PACs may raise “unlimited” sums of money from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, before spending unlimited sums to overtly advocate for or against political candidates. Nevertheless, the fact that Adelson wants to give money “directly to Trump” goes to show how he distrusts the Republican.
The chief executive of Las Vegas Sands has given hundreds of millions of dollars to Republican candidates prior and in 2012 alone, he contributed at least US$98 million to the Republican. Obviously, Adelson knew that Republican conservatives who still couldn’t accept a possibility of calling Trump the “Mr President”, would divert his money elsewhere, not to Trump’s campaign.
Perhaps it was Trump’s assurance that he was dedicated to protecting Israel’s security that has convinced Mr. Adelson and his wife, Miriam. The 82-year-old billionaire whose worth is at a staggering US$25.8 billion and is the world’s #22 wealthiest man was of Ukrainian Jewish ancestry. Interestingly, Trump had written about Adelson wanting to make Senator Marco Rubio “his perfect little puppet.”
Adelson offers his version of story about backing his new horse Trump – “He is a candidate with actual CEO experience, shaped and moulded by the commitment and risk of his own money rather than the public’s. I am endorsing Trump’s bid for president and strongly encourage my fellow Republicans … to do the same.”
Regardless of the actual reason, Sheldon Adelson’s endorsement is a big deal, or rather strong signal, to Donald Trump haters. This is the little push that will get other influential Republicans who are still bitching about the bombastic Trump, to get behind the new horse that Adelson is betting, if they wish to get free money from the tycoon in the future.
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May 16th, 2016 by financetwitter
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