After seeing his role diminished on August 15, campaign chairman Manafort was gone by August 19, when he resigned following revelations about his previous political consulting work for the Russian backed leader in Ukraine.
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The latest figures show a large sum of the Trump July spending, about 45% of the total, went to the web design and digital marketing firm Giles-Parscale, while millions also went on air travel. It’s a crossover vendor from Trump’s real estate organization.
Polling shows Trump lagging significantly behind Clinton among minority voters, partially due to some of the more critical comments on immigration he has made since entering the race.
For perspective, in July 2012, Mitt Romney’s campaign reported $32.7 million in disbursements.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Fredericksburg, Va., Saturday, Aug. 20, 2016.
Mr Trump has financed much of his own campaign – putting in about $50m. “How can we stand over a million more African Americans in poverty since 2009?” He launched his campaign previous year with a speech that accused Mexico of sending rapists and criminals across the border, and has since vowed to deport all of the estimated 11 million people living in the USA illegally, though some Hispanic supporters insist that Trump has softened his stance.
A new style was immediately evident as Trump, in a first, offered regrets for any remarks that had caused offense, stuck with his teleprompter at a series of events, and paid a visit to flood-ravaged Louisiana. His last campaign payment was for $15,000 in December. Conway said Sunday that Republican National Committee communications director and chief strategist Sean Spicer would also be increasing his work with the Trump campaign. The campaign paid about $2 million for private jets other than Trump’s own TAG Air, which also collected $500,000. But he’s running critically low on time to build an operation that can compete with Clinton. Trump put out his first ads days ago, spending $5 million to air them in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
In addition to being ahead of Trump in polls in key states, Clinton has maintained a staff of about 700 for months, opened up offices across the country and already spent $67 million on general election ads.
The Trump campaign’s $18.5m in July was up from $7.8m in June, according to a Federal Election Commission report released on Saturday.
Trump’s new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, echoed Priebus’ optimism, contending that the candidate just had the best week of his campaign, “mostly because he’s able to be himself, the authentic Donald Trump” and “the pivot that he’s made is on substance”.
At the end of July, the campaign paid 100,000 dollars (£76,000) to Cambridge Analytica, a deep-dive data firm that did business with Republican opponent Ted Cruz.
The campaign claimed $103 million on hand for itself and two joint fundraising committees, the Hillary Victory Fund and Hillary Action Fund.
Questions also remain on the specifics of Trump’s policy proposals, particularly with what he would do with the estimated 11 million immigrants who are in the US illegally.
They also show Mr Trump is still paying the firm of sacked campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
That is about the same amount it had paid him each month while he was running the campaign.
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The committee for the Democratic presidential nominee ended the month with $58.5 million on hand, up from $44.4 million at the end of June.
