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WASHINGTON — President Trump has raised more than $88 million for his re-election campaign over the last year and a half, giving him a dramatic head start on prospective Democratic challengers in the 2020 race.
Mr. Trump's campaign committee, combined with two joint committees formed with the Republican Party, ended last month with nearly $53.6 million in the bank — almost $10 million more than their previous largest balance — according to finance reports filed Sunday evening with the Federal Election Commission.
The totals reflect a brisk and continued fund-raising effort by Mr. Trump's campaign operation that, in a departure from usual presidential practice, started even before he took office. Most new presidents shift their political operations to their national party committee until launching their re-election campaign after the first midterm election of their tenure.
Mr. Trump's campaign and the two joint committees — Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again — have continued spending aggressively to cultivate donors through both online list-building targeting small donors and fund-raising events for big donors.
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The three Trump committees raised more than $17.7 million from the beginning of April through the end of June, the period covered in Sunday's reports. That was the second-largest quarterly haul since he took office, though it was a drop of nearly $2.5 million from the preceding quarter.
The committees spent more than $8.5 million in the second quarter.
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The Trump campaign and its affiliated committees also spent heavily on merchandise, including the "Make America Great Again" hats that are the most recognizable branding of his campaign. The reports show nearly $600,000 worth of payments to an array of companies for hats, T-shirts, stickers, towels and commemorative coins to be given or sold to supporters.
The three committees also continued spending on legal fees, including paying firms that are representing the Trump campaign and its associates in investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The committees spent nearly $1.2 million on legal fees in the second quarter, bringing their total legal spending to more than $8.6 million since the beginning of 2017.
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Mr. Trump's campaign also spent nearly $148,000 at Trump Organization properties, including the Trump International Hotel in Washington, bringing the total spending at such properties to more than $856,000 since the beginning of 2017.
Separately, America First Action, a "super PAC" dedicated to supporting Mr. Trump and allied candidates, filed a report on Sunday night revealing that it had raised more than $5 million between mid-May and the end of June.
It's scary that there isn't further scrutiny into these funding campaigns, as one can only imagine what sort of new bag of tricks is being prepared for 2020 with the additional headstart of donations(legal or otherwise).
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/politics/trump-fundraising-campaign.html
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