Elections

2016 Presidential Elections

Coverage of the 2016 presidential election from NPR News and related blogs, including candidate profiles, interviews and talking points.On-air specials will also be broadcast as Election Day approaches, including the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary.WRVO also provides coverage of regional elections both on-air and online.

With $80 Million July Haul, Trump Narrows Fundraising Gap With Clinton

NPR | By Danielle Kurtzleben

Published August 3, 2016 at 4:27 PM EDT

The fundraising gap between the Clinton and Trump campaigns shrank in July. Altogether, the Trump campaign and affiliated joint fundraising committees took in around $80 million last month, the campaign reported Wednesday, plus $2 million from Donald Trump himself. In contrast, Hillary Clinton's organization and committees brought in about $90 million in July, that campaign reported on Tuesday.

That's a significantly tighter gap than in June, when Trump's total was $51 million to Clinton's $69 million.

Those figures include the fundraising of both the campaigns and their joint fundraising committees, which allow rich donors to give hundreds of thousands of dollars, which then gets divided up among the campaigns, the national party committees and state parties.

The Trump campaign has been boasting of how many small donations it has been receiving, saying in a Wednesday statement that those donations were up by 69 percent in July. At a Monday campaign event, Trump said his campaign had raised $35.8 million in small donations over the course of a month.

Clinton's campaign committee itself reported it raised about $63 million in July. Trump's campaign release doesn't break down exactly how much the campaign itself brought in. The full July fundraising reports from both campaigns must be filed at the Federal Election Commission by Aug. 20.

Clinton still has significantly more money in the bank than Trump; her campaign has $58 million on hand, compared to Trump's $37 million. However, this is a big improvement for Trump over just a couple of months ago. At the start of June, Trump had only around $1.3 million on hand, compared to Clinton's $42 million.

Trump's stronger fundraising could help even out the massive advertising gap between the two candidates. Thus far, Clinton's camp has aired $68 million in ads, compared to Trump's $6 million, NBC News reported on Tuesday. Even more staggering, Clinton had reserved $98 million in TV ad time, compared to Trump's $817,000, NBC also reported.