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I Thought Everyone Knew The Trump Campaign Is A Massive Grift [1]

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Date: 2024-08-26  

On Monday, a former GOP Lobbyist wrote an opinion piece for the Old Gray Horserace Form highlighting that a lot of donor money was disappearing into the void of Trumps own personal companies or those controlled by close allies. This leads to my next question: Didn’t everyone already know half the point of the Trump campaign was to move money from his PAC to his own personal accounts?



When Trump made that half hearted launch of his 2024 campaign in Mar-A-Lago, I remember thinking ‘Well, he’s mainly doing this so he can spend the funds in his PAC on himself.’ You hear about how he’d billed the secret service 5 times the government rate to ‘stay’ at his various properties while protecting him and you think ‘Well of course he did that. He’s a financial leech.’



You look at his 2024 campaign’s sudden unwillingness to do rallies now that municipalities are demanding money upfront, after his history of not paying for previous rallies, and you start to wonder. You look at his whinging over Biden leaving the race and you start to wonder if maybe that’s because now he has to pay for new ads out of his campaigns pockets. I’ve seen some pictures of mailers that are still attacking Biden over a month after Biden left the race, and I wondered if maybe that was because he didn’t want to pay for a new mailer.



All of this is interesting and also potentially a massive opportunity strategy-wise. To me, two things have driven Trump’s campaign: a desire to get revenge on Biden and enriching himself by draining political coffers. The first one isn’t going to happen anymore, so he’s moved on to focusing on the second. This might be a generational chance here. He’s taken up most of the fundraising space on the GOP side, and the DNC can really make the GOP suffer because of it.



Widen the race, make Trump have to pay to defend states like North Carolina or even Florida, states they seem to have never considered spending in, and he may very well abandon those states. At the same time, GOP funds on the ground will be tight, and downballot candidates will suffer in both funds for ads and GOTV and a lack of coat tails to ride. GOP congresscritters are a fickle bunch, and if they feel their office is in danger, they will lash out. GOP infighting helps get Democrats elected whenever it happens, and the chance to create more should never be missed.



Nevermind Go Low or Go High, Let’s Go Wide And Really Run Up The Score.

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