Trump's re-election campaign is burning money — but does he have a strategy?

The 2020 election is still more than a year and a half away, but President Trump's re-election campaign has been raking in record-setting sums for months. Trump is also spending a lot of that money already, dropping $23 million in the last quarter of 2018 alone.
Many of those expenditures were focused on Republican candidates on the ballot in 2018, with about $8 million going to online and TV advertising and $1.5 million spent on Trump's beloved campaign rallies. The president's campaign also owes the U.S. Treasury about $1 million for travel expenses, and it's spending hundreds of thousands on legal services and campaign consultants. "Make America Great Again" hats are a significant cost too, running the campaign $289,000 in the final three months of last year.
Most of Trump's campaign funding comes from small contributions, but major donors matter too — and they're reportedly getting nervous there's no strategy behind all this spending.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A recent meeting with more than 100 big contributors and Trump's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, left the donors unsatisfied Trump has a viable plan for re-election, Politico reported Monday. "There's a lot of anxiety," one such donor, who is also a friend of the president, told Politico. "There isn't a lot of confidence ... among the donor group, the broader Republican group important to the reelection."
"Donors are asking for the plan and they have no plan," said an independent adviser with ties to the campaign. "There's not a strategy." And even if there is a strategy, another donor mused, there is no guarantee Trump can stick to it: "The problem is the president can't and won't stay on message, push an issue in any kind of sustained way, stay out of trouble for more than five minutes."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
How successful would Elon Musk's third party be?
Today's Big Question Musk has vowed to start a third party after falling out with Trump
-
Music reviews: Bruce Springsteen and Benson Boone
Feature "Tracks II: The Lost Albums" and "American Heart"
-
Why passkeys are the next frontier in digital security
A disruptive new technology promises to put passwords to bed forever — but not yet
-
Thai court suspends prime minister over leaked call
Speed Read Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has been suspended, pending an ethics investigation
-
Senate passes GOP megabill after Alaska side deal
The pivotal yes vote came from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, whose support was secured following negotiated side deals for her home state Alaska
-
Trump sues LA over immigration policies
Speed Read He is suing over the city's sanctuary law, claiming it prevents local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities
-
Obama, Bush and Bono eulogize USAID on final day
Speed Read The US Agency for International Development, a humanitarian organization, has been gutted by the Trump administration
-
The last words and final moments of 40 presidents
The Explainer Some are eloquent quotes worthy of the holders of the highest office in the nation, and others... aren't
-
Senate advances GOP bill that costs more, cuts more
Speed Read The bill would make giant cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, leaving 11.8 million fewer people with health coverage
-
Canadian man dies in ICE custody
Speed Read A Canadian citizen with permanent US residency died at a federal detention center in Miami
-
GOP races to revise megabill after Senate rulings
Speed Read A Senate parliamentarian ruled that several changes to Medicaid included in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" were not permissible