Fueled by small donations, Donald Trump makes up major financial ground in July 2016, now has $74 million cash on hand-NY Times

8/3/16, "Fueled by Small Donations, Donald Trump Makes Up Major Financial Ground," NY Times, Nicholas Confessore

"Supporters reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at a Donald J. Trump rally in Ashburn, Va., on Tuesday (8/2). Credit Chet Strange for The New York Times"

"Donald J. Trump all but erased his enormous fund-raising deficit against Hillary Clinton in the span of just two months, according to figures released by his campaign on Tuesday, converting the passion of his core followers into a flood of small donations on a scale rarely seen in national politics.

Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $64 million through a joint digital and direct mail effort in July, according to his campaign, the bulk of it from small donations. All told, Mr. Trump and his party brought in $82 million last month, only slightly behind Mrs. Clinton, and ended with an enormous pool of $74 million in cash on hand, suggesting he might now have the resources to compete with Mrs. Clinton in the closing stretch of the campaign.

The figures mark a major achievement in Mr. Trump’s campaign, which until recent months was largely funded by a trickle of hat and T-shirt sales and by Mr. Trump’s wallet. And they suggest Mr. Trump has the potential to be the first Republican nominee whose campaign could be financed chiefly by grass-roots supporters pitching in $10 or $25 apiece, echoing the unprecedented success of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont during the Democratic presidential primary....

Mr. Trump has begun to exploit an opportunity that many Republicans have long viewed as his for the taking: marrying his powerful credibility among grass-roots Republicans with the high-tech tools of large-scale digital fund-raising. During July 2012, for example, Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee reported raising a total of just $19 million from contributions of less than $200.
 

“There was always that potential, but you didn’t have candidates who were as uniquely positioned in the same way that Trump is,” said Patrick Ruffini, a Republican strategist who ran digital fund-raising at the Republican National Committee under President George W. Bush."

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