What the Fundraising Numbers Tell Us

Friday - October 16, 2015

RUSH: Now, let's go to this donation story, because this, folks, is also a teachable moment.  Let me first assure with you some news stories and headlines about this.  The New York Times is literally outraged over what they have learned.  Story is by Eric Lichtblau.  The headline: "Donations to Donald Trump's Campaign Outpace Self-Funding." The story begins this way: "For months, Donald J. Trump has highlighted his credentials as a politician who was financing his own campaign for president. No longer.

"Mr. Trump revealed in a filing Thursday to the Federal Election Commission that the vast majority of the money he raised and spent this summer as he rose to the top of national polls came not from his own coffers, as it had in the spring, but from about $3.7 million in what he called 'unsolicited contributions.' Some 74,000 donors pitched in an average of about $50 to help his campaign, he reported," and they are livid. 

They're livid because they think Trump lied to them.  They think Trump's out there saying, "Hey, I'm not gonna take money from anybody! I'm not gonna be beholden to anybody. I'm a rich guy. I have $10 billion, maybe more. Who can count?  It's the best $10 billion anybody ever had.  My billions are better than anybody else's billions, and I got more than anybody else and I'm spending mine. I'm not spending anybody else's." 

Then they learn that people have been donating, and they think Trump has lied, they think they got Trump, they think they can expose Trump here as a phony baloney, plastic banana, good-time rock 'n' roller who has misled people.  But instead what old Eric Lichtblau and the New York Times are inadvertently proving here is Trump's case.  Trump's claim has always been he's not going to sell himself to big donors, like Hillary and so many other candidates do.  The people sending Trump money, 50 bucks? 

They're not expecting special favors from a Trump administration.  They know that 50 bucks isn't get them Trump loyalty on anything.  When Trump says the money's unsolicited, that's what really ticks them off.  People are voluntarily sending Trump money when he doesn't need it.  All the other candidates need it. They don't have their own money. Trump does, and people are still sending him money, and that just ticks them off.  From many standpoints, it isn't fair.

You know, in a socialist world, a guy that's got $10 billion ought to be giving his money away.  People ought not be sending him money.  It isn't fair.  Trump's got enough. He shouldn't be getting money. They shouldn't be sending him money. It's not fair, it's not fair.  And then it just ticks them off besides all that that there are people so supportive of Trump that they would send him money even when he doesn't ask for it.  That scares them. 

These are people, don't forget, who think Trump's still gonna bomb out.  These are people still hoping, still praying, still telling themselves that Trump has peaked or will soon and is going to fade.  That Trump isn't in it to win, that he's not for real. "Some kind of trick is being played. He doesn't intend to go all the way," and yet every day there's new evidence that they're wrong about that, and they're having trouble coming to grips with it.  Mr. Lichtblau of the New York Times then writes:

"Mr. Trump himself contributed only about $100,000 in in-kind contributions, including rent space that he donated and payroll expenses that he covered. That represented a huge drop from the spring, when Mr. Trump donated about $1.9 million to his campaign, financing the bulk of it himself."  You know, it's funny. I don't remember hearing any of that, do you?  I don't remember anybody in the Drive-By Media reporting that Trump spent nearly $2 million on his campaign in the spring?  You know, and I try to keep up with the news. 

My show prep knows no boundaries.  I'll go wherever this is news.  And I didn't see this.  So he spent his own money like he said he was gonna do. He lent himself money, lent his campaign money.  Here's the story from the National Journal, which publishes The Hotline: "Donald Trump's Donors, Not His Bank Account, Fueled His Magic Summer."  The headline is just seething with rage.  You can see it.  You can feel it when you read.  "Donald Trump's Donors, Not His Bank Account, Fueled His Magic Summer -- The candidate spent just $100,000 of his own money in the campaign." 

Here's how the story begins.  "The man who claims $10 billion in wealth barely spent any of his own money on his front-running presidential race this summer, as tens of thousands of Americans pitched in with $3.8 million -- enough to cover nearly all his expenses. Some 2,200 donors gave at least $200 to Donald Trump's campaign over the three-month period, totaling more than $1 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings. The campaign said an additional 72,000 donors combined to give Trump $2.8 million, or an average $38.73 each." 

Folks, one of the ways to look at this is, Trump accepts small donations. He did not ask for them. He didn't solicit them. He didn't spend a whole lot of money.  Look at Trump's campaign, $2 million.  How much money has Jeb Bush spent on ad buys so far?  The number I saw was $11 million so far and it hasn't moved Jeb in the polls much at all, not significantly.  So Trump, small donations, didn't spend a whole lot of money, growing his lead for the most part in almost all states and nationally. 

Now, it helps that he gets a lot of free media.  Don't misunderstand.  He engenders a lot of free media but that's because the media love televising Trump.  Trump equals ratings, and so they enjoy it.  I don't know how many millions Jeb has spent.  I'm confused on the number, but it hasn't moved him off of fifth place for the most part. 

I'll tell you what else.  This is another really robust or glaring indication that Trump is just not your average, ordinary candidate that everybody has come to expect or has been forced into liking.  This is all genuine.  Every dollar donated to Trump comes from enthusiasm.  There isn't any mandatory, obligatory giving.  These are people that want Trump elected and they're willing to put their 38 to $50 to work in that effort.  The important thing is he's not soliciting it. 

Hollywood Reporter: "Donald Trump Has Spent Less Than $2 million of His Own Money on GOP Campaign."  They're all just seething here.  Trump was supposed to have been gone by now.  Trump was supposed to have embarrassed himself or humiliated himself. He was some way supposed to have been sent packing by now.  He certainly wasn't gonna be able to secure a lead like this without spending any money.  These people are all from inside the Beltway, including the media people, and the way you get anywhere in politics, you have to buy your way there. 

You have to raise money. You have to spend that money on ads.  The donors get their take and their pick of you whenever they donate to you, and none of that is happening with Trump.  It's all outside the formula and they're having trouble coming to grips with it.  From the Washington Post, a little quote:  "Bush raised $13.4 million from July to September and started October with just $10.3 million on hand after spending about 11 and a half million, or 86% of the total over the quarter."  Yeah, I know it was around 11 million he'd spent. 

Now, let's expand this and let's include the Democrats because the fund-raising here is indicative of something.  I have the list of money that has been donated to all the candidates, both parties.  And folks, among other things, throw out what it says about Trump, as we discussed. You know, yesterday I was once again expressing my total incredulity and astonishment at how the Republican Party remains stubbornly opposed to making a connection with its own base and trying to grow its political fortunes. 

The whole thing that the establishment still thinks it's independents that determine who wins elections, and that's who you've gotta pay attention to, and that's who you've gotta focus on, and in the process they ignore their own base and in some cases inside the Beltway even demonize their own base.  Now, when you look at this list, Bernie Sanders, he has raised the second largest amount of money.  The two leading fundraisers here, or the two leading candidates who have raised the most money, had the most donated to them, are Hillary and Bernie Sanders. 

Hillary has raised almost $30 million, and 17% of it is from donors of $200 or less.  Essentially the vast majority of Hillary's donors are the standard, ordinary big moneyed people.  Next is Bernie Sanders at $26 million.  And the percentage of that $26 million raised from donors of $200 or less is 77%.  If you combine the money raised by Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, you come out with close to $56 million.  I'm gonna tell you what that spells.  That spells ass whooping on Election Day if the Republican Party does not nominate a conservative. Because when you go through the rest of this, you will find all of this money on the Republican side, Chris Christie, $4 million; Jeb Bush, $13 million; Kasich, $4 million; Fiorina, $6 million. 

The establishment candidates here are getting a lot of money, but nowhere near what the Democrats are getting.  The anti-establishment Republican candidates, Ben Carson, $20 million.  He's the third largest fundraiser.  Ted Cruz, $12 million.  Jeb Bush is in there at 13.  The point is the Democrats are raising a lot of money.  There is a lot of enthusiasm for the Democrat candidates, either at Hillary or Bernie Sanders.  It cannot be denied.  We cannot assume that everybody voting for one of those two is an idiot and a member of a minority or whatever.  They are fully energized, particularly the Sanders people.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Look.  Let me summarize this for you without numbers because the numbers just confuse.  In this list of donations so far, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Lindsey Graham, the three of them, not only have they raised less than Ben Carson whose total is $20.7 million, Jeb, Christie, and Graham, those three combined have raised less than Carson.  And all of it is coming from a few big donors.  There are not a lot of people represented in the money given to Jeb, Christie, and Graham.  Cruz has raised a lot of money, $12 million, and half of it is coming from donors under 200 grand.  So there are a lot of people behind Ted Cruz, a lot of supporters.  Kasich, $4 million, most of it from big-money donors, not a whole lot of people there. 

If the Republican establishment does not get off of the dime here and get off of this business that they can only win with independents, if they don't realize by looking at who's donating to whom here, if they don't look at the strength of the Democrats and how many people are donating to Bernie Sanders combined with all the huge donations Hillary is getting, that money dwarfs -- you know, Trump's raised almost $4 million and it's accidental.  He's not even asked for it.  Ben Carson at $20 million, Cruz at 12.  Carly Fiorina, where is she in this list?  She's at $6.7 million. 

The point is, it's not playing well for the Republican establishment with their focus on moderates and independents.  If they don't nominate one of these conservative candidates, then they are looking at another huge butt kicking.  That's what these numbers tell me.  And, by the way, that's not a surprise to any of us, is it?  They keep nominating these moderates, these Northeastern liberals or whatever they think are gonna get the independents and they keep losing.  They've got victory right in front of them in the palm of their hand, and they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory every four years. 

The Sanders money is roughly equal to the combined haul of Bush, Christie, Kasich, and Graham.  One Democrat's raised more money than those four establishment candidates.  What does it tell you?  It's doom.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna publish at RushLimbaugh.com the released list yesterday from the Federal Election Commission on candidates, the money they've raised, and where it's come from.  And I'm gonna post it around my commentary here.  There are too many numbers for me to use here.  You can't keep track of numbers as you hear them.  But let me put this in perspective in another way. 

You take Bernie Sanders, who's second only to Hillary Clinton, but I count his $26 million as more powerful than her $29 million for this reason.  Seventy-seven percent of the people that have given money to Bernie Sanders are people that have given less than 200 bucks.  That's a lot of people, folks.  That's a lot of enthusiasm.  Now, you might say, "Well, yeah, but what if he doesn't get the nomination? He's not gonna get the nomination."  His people are not gonna vote Republican, and they're gonna stay wired.  He'll keep them wired.  Bernie will keep them wired.  They will vote, or a good percentage of them.  If Hillary's the nominee -- depends on how screwed they think Bernie gets in this.  There's a lot of that now.  I mean, the Bernie Sanders people think CNN screwed their guy by proclaiming Hillary the winner. 

They think that CNN screwed Bernie supporters by scrubbing supportive comments that they made to CNN's website.  So there is friction.  It's not automatic that Bernie's voters and donors, supporters are gonna vote for the Democrat nominee.  But they're not gonna vote Republican.  Now, just hang with us.  You've got Hillary at $29 million, almost 30, and only 17% of that is from people under 200 bucks.  The rest of her money is from foreign governments, big corporations, people expecting all kinds of payback.  The same kind of people donating to the Republicans. 

So it's the Bernie Sanders number that we look at here to gauge numbers and enthusiasm. He's got $26 million raised, 77% of it from people under $200 or less. Bernie Sanders' money is equal to the combined donations of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Lindsey Graham.  It takes four Republicans, including the establishment's presumed front-runner, Jeb Bush.  Bush, Christie, Kasich, and Graham, it takes those four people to equal the dollars Bernie Sanders has raised. But the difference is the number of donors that have given to Bush, Christie, Kasich, and Graham is tiny compared to the number who have given to Bernie Sanders. 

I'm just using Bernie because he's the top raising Democrat from individual, small donations. The RNC, the GOP establishment seems to be not interested in small donors.  They seem to be all-in for the big donors.  The Chamber of Commerce donors, big CEOs, corporate donors because that's who's agenda they seem to be pushing.  The small donor types, the Tea Party types, the people that are giving money to Trump that he's not even asking for, the people giving money to Ben Carson, $20.7 million.  By the way, 60% of Ben Carson's donors are of the $200 or less variety.  Seventy-one percent of Trump's donors are $200 or less. 

So you look at Trump and Carson and you can see the people supporting them are small donors, the people I always call the ones who make the country work. Certainly not rich corporate CEO types, and these are not people that expect some sort of issue oriented payback.  They're donating because of enthusiasm, ideas.  The corporate donors are donating 'cause they want policy in return.  And that's who the party seems to be listening to, and that's how they're losing these presidential raises.  So they lost in 2008, so they lost 2012, and these numbers tell the same story happening again in 2016. 

If the Republican nominee is not a conservative, if it's another one of these, I don't know, party preferred types, it's gonna be the same story, at least on paper.  But there's plenty of time here for this to be digested and learned from.  The question is, will it be?  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Dr. Krauthammer on Fox News, Special Report with Bret Baier last night.  This is his opinion on the fund-raising totals that I spent exactly one hour ago explaining to you. If you missed it, we're gonna post the table with all the money and the type of donors that all the candidates have raised so far, Democrats and Republicans.  Here's Dr. Krauthammer's take...

KRAUTHAMMER:  You know, you do have to wonder about the people who've been sending money to Donald Trump.

BAIER:  Seventy-three thousand.

KRAUTHAMMER:  They must be very committed.  I think that's really quite remarkable.  He, of course, doesn't need it.  I think the only numbers that really stand out here are Ben Carson, who's an amazing fundraising machine.  This is from an enormous number of small donors.  He doesn't have the big, fat cats.

RUSH:  And once again, you have shock and surprise here in many sectors of the Republican establishment and even conservative media over the amount of money Trump's getting.  Krauthammer was taken aback.  Trump has not asked for any money.  He said he's spending his own.  It's thought that he has $10 billion!  And still 73,000 people have sent him money?  I think this is the... Given the way people in politics think, that fact -- 73,000 people have contributed a total of almost $3.9 million for Donald Trump -- that's what tells them that Trump's support is real.  They're shocked. 

And you heard it in Dr. Krauthammer's voice.  "They must be very committed. I think that's really quite remarkable."  So up until now, it must have been some question about how strong Trump's support really was.  The polling data must not be telling the whole story.  But when they hear that 73,000 people have given an average of 38 bucks to total $2.9 or $3 million, they go, "Whoa!"  And then they're really blown away by how much money Ben Carson's raised.  They look at Ben Carson, and they see somebody that can barely be heard, he's so soft-spoken.

He's not professional politician, he doesn't have a professional political apparatus, and it boggles the mind.  And of course the chosen candidate, or the preferred candidate in this mix is Jeb Bush.  And he's got just barely over half the amount of money that Ben Carson's raised, and Jeb has professional fundraisers.  Jeb has professional donors.  Jeb has the cream of the crop designed to collect money.  Ben Carson?  He's a neophyte in terms of his experience in politics. 

The difference is, in the case of both Trump and Carson, it's the voters that are giving money, not professionals, not professional fundraisers.  Well, that might... Carson might have hired some professional fundraiser.  But vast majority of people giving to Trump are not even being asked to.  They're doing it on their own.  And Ben Carson's, 77% of the money that Carson's raised, people given less than 200 bucks and this is boggling the minds of the inside-the-establishment professionals.  They've always believed that to get that kind of money you gotta go get the big donors.

You gotta get the corporate guys!

You've gotta get the rich, the creme de la crème! 

And Ben Carson's getting his money from the equivalent of Tea Party types.  This just doesn't compute.  But let me repeat this again, 'cause these are the numbers you have to know.  Bernie Sanders, $26 million; 77% of that 26 million comes from people who've donated less than 200 bucks.  That $26 million is bigger, roughly equal to the amount of money that Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Lindsey Graham have raised.  But Bush, Christie, Kasich, and Graham have generated that total with far fewer people, far fewer donors. 

So just in terms of the numbers of people giving their $26 million to Bernie Sanders versus the number of people given the $26 million to the combined Bush, Christie, Kasich, Graham category, it's not even close.  The numbers of Democrats dwarf the number of people.  So no matter how you slice this, it's not good for the Republican establishment.  It takes four of their candidates to equal what Bernie Sanders has raised.  They might think it's good that it's taken far fewer people, but that's actually not nearly as much support from actual voters as are sidling up to Democrat candidates here.