Trump Raised $247.8 Million in September: Campaign Update
Biden Ad Features George Floyd’s Sister: Campaign Update
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s re-election effort took in $247.8 Million in September. A super political action committee supporting Democratic nominee Joe Biden raised $23.2 million. And the president said that re-tweets don’t equal endorsements.
There are 19 days until the election and 61 days until the Electoral College meets.
Other Developments:
Trump Raised $247.8 Million in September
Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee combined to raise $247.8 million in September, their best month in the campaign but well short of the record $383 million raised by Biden in the same period.
Trump’s re-election effort, which includes two joint fundraising committees that split their money between Trump’s campaign, the RNC and state party committees, had $251.4 million in the bank heading into the final month. Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, said on Twitter that his campaign has $432 million in the bank.
“President Trump hits final stretch with strength, resources, record & huge ground game needed to spread message and secure re-election,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said on Twitter when announcing the haul.
The president enjoyed a huge lead in cash in April, when his effort had $255 million in the bank compared to $98 million for Biden and the DNC. But unprecedented back-to-back months that saw Biden twice top the record for fundraising in a month put the Democrat far ahead. -- Bill Allison
Pro-Biden Super-PAC Raises $23.2 Million (9:57 p.m.)
AB PAC, a pro-Biden super-PAC, raised $23.2 million in the third quarter, AB PAC’s best showing of the election, according to its latest filing with the Federal Election Commission.
The record haul was fueled by $1 million donations from LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Sequoia Capital’s Michael Moritz.
An affiliate of American Bridge 21st Century Foundation, a political nonprofit co-founded by former conservative journalist David Brock, AB PAC spent $26.2 million and ended September with $9.9 million cash on hand. The group’s ads feature voters who backed Trump in 2016 explaining why they’ll support Biden in 2020.
Other big donors include philanthropist Deborah Simon, who gave $1.5 million, and Lone Pine Capital founder Stephen Mandel who gave $1 million. Bain Capital co-chairman Joshua Bekenstein and his wife Anita Bekenstein each chipped in $500,000. American Bridge gave $4.6 million.
AB PAC has spent $45.5 million on television, radio and digital ads in battleground states, according to data from Advertising Analytics. -- Bill Allison
Trump Says Retweeting Conspiracy Theories Is Not an Endorsement (8:58 p.m.)
Trump has taken sides in a long-running social media debate: Retweets aren’t endorsements.
Pressed during an NBC town hall about his recent retweet of a baseless conspiracy theory that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden isn’t dead, Trump said he wasn’t taking a position.
“That was a retweet,” he told host Savannah Guthrie. “I’ll put it out there, people can decide for themselves. I don’t take a position.”
Guthrie then pressed Trump.
“I don’t get that. You’re the president!” she said. “You’re not like someone’s crazy uncle who can retweet whatever.”
Earlier in the debate, Trump also refused to denounce the QAnon conspiracy theory, saying he agrees with its adherents opposition to pedophilia and can’t be sure if there is a satanic pedophile cult involving prominent Democrats or not.
C-Span Host Is Suspended for Lying About Twitter Hack (4:47 p.m.)
Scully, who was slated to host the second presidential debate Thursday night before Trump withdrew, has been suspended indefinitely from his role as C-Span’s political editor for falsely claiming that his Twitter account had been hacked when he engaged with a vocal Trump critic.
Scully made the claim after a tweet from his account asked Anthony Scaramucci, a former White House communications director, for advice on whether to respond to a tweet from the president accusing him of being a “never Trumper.” After Scully’s tweet to Scaramucci was assailed for alleged bias against Trump, Scully falsely said his account had been hacked, he acknowledged Thursday.
Thursday’s presidential debate was canceled after Trump refused to participate once organizers made the event virtual in response to the president’s diagnosis and treatment for Covid-19.
After C-Span’s announcement, Trump wrote on Twitter: “I was right again! Steve Scully just admitted he was lying about his Twitter being hacked. The Debate was Rigged! He was suspended from @cspan indefinitely. The Trump Campaign was not treated fairly by the ‘Commission’. Did I show good instincts in being the first to know?” -- Emma Kinery
Trump, Graham Keep Leads in South Carolina Poll (3:22 p.m.)
Trump and his close ally Senator Lindsey Graham both have solid leads in South Carolina, a Republican stronghold that hasn’t backed a Democratic presidential candidate since 1975.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Thursday found Trump leading Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by 8 percentage points, 49% to 41%. Trump won the state by 14 percentage points in 2016.
While Graham is ahead by 6 points, 46%-40%, he is facing an unexpectedly competitive race from Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison. In the poll, 12% of Black voters say they remain undecided, which could mean more support for Harrison, who is African-American and announced this week that he shattered Senate campaign fundraising records with a $57 million third-quarter haul.
The poll was conducted Oct. 9-15 and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. -- Emma Kinery
NBC Town Hall Rare Foray Outside Conservative Media for Trump (2:20 p.m.)
Trump’s town hall forum on NBC News Thursday night will be a rare foray outside of conservative media for the president in recent weeks.
Since his previous town hall with ABC News on Sept. 15, Trump has given several long interviews to conservative broadcast news outlets. He’s faced other journalists mostly at two White House press conferences, where he has more control over the flow of questions.
Since mid-September, Trump has called into the “Fox and Friends” morning show three times and done co-host Brian Kilmeade’s show on Fox News Radio once.
He was interviewed by Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Oct. 8 and Stuart Varney on Thursday. And he spent two hours on conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh’s show last week. He also spoke to Bartiromo on Oct. 11 on her “Sunday Morning Futures” show on Fox News Channel.
Last Thursday, he was interviewed by Fox’s Sean Hannity, followed by an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show on Friday.
Adelsons Give $2.5 Million to GOP Super-PAC (1:30 p.m.)
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam Adelson combined to give $2.5 million to the RJC Victory Fund, the super-PAC arm of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
RJC Victory Fund raised $5 million in the third quarter, spent $2.2 million, and ended September with $3 million cash on hand. It’s spent $6 million so far to influence elections, including $2.7 million supporting Trump.
Other donors included real estate investor Mel Sembler, who gave $100,000; investor Craig Duchossois, who gave $50,000; and Russell Carson, a co-founder of the private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, who gave $10,000.
The Adelsons have given more to other groups. This year, they’ve contributed $50 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super-PAC with ties to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that backs GOP Senate candidates. -- Bill Allison
Small-Dollar Donors Gave $1.5 Billion for Democrats (11:35 a.m.)
Grassroots donors in the third quarter poured a massive $1.5 billion through ActBlue, the fundraising platform for Democratic candidates and causes, the group announced Thursday.
That was nearly equal to the amount of money donated through ActBlue in the entire 2018 election cycle. There were 6.8 million donors who made 31.4 million contributions averaging $47. The group said 70% of donors in the current election cycle have been first-time donors.
“This people-powered movement will expand the map for Democrats for years to come,” said Erin Hill, ActBlue’s executive director, who added that small-dollar donors are contributing to races across the board. They gave $758 million in September alone.
ActBlue had its biggest fundraising day on Sept. 19 in the wake of the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, raising $70.6 million. In the third quarter, four times as much money flowed to Democratic Senate candidates as did in the third quarter of 2018.
Democrats have enjoyed a huge advantage in processing small-dollar donations, though Republicans are starting to close the gap. The GOP platform, WinRed, raised $623 million in the same period. -- Bill Allison
Graham: Biden Has a ‘Good Chance’ of Winning (10:55 a.m.)
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham predicted in late September that Trump would win re-election, but at a Senate hearing on Thursday he said Biden has a “good chance” of taking the White House.
Graham, who’s facing a tough race against an opponent, Jaime Harrison, who’s raised huge amounts of money, was responding to Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar’s comment that the nomination to fill the current Supreme Court vacancy should be up to whomever is elected president on Nov. 3.
“Y’all have a good chance of winning the White House,” Graham said during the Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Klobuchar responded: “Thank you for acknowledging that.” -- Anna Edgerton
Voting Will Be Under Way in All 50 States Friday (9:25 a.m.)
Trump’s running out of time to turn around a campaign that’s behind in the polls.
As of Friday, voters in all 50 states will be able to cast mail-in ballots, while early in-person voting is already under way in more than half of states.
Under state election guidelines, only Washington state has not yet begun mailing out ballots, which it starts Friday.
Early in-person voting, meantime, has already started in 27 states, including the battlegrounds of Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina, and other potentially competitive states like Georgia, Iowa and Ohio.
More than 17 million ballots have already been cast, according to the U.S. Elections Project at the University of Florida, smashing previous records. By this time in 2016, only about 1.4 million people had already voted.
That’s being driven largely by Democratic enthusiasm for early voting this cycle. Among states that report party registration data, 56% of returned ballots have come from Democrats, 23% from Republicans and 20% from independents, according to Elections Project data.
Voters Say They’re Better Off, But Not the U.S. (7:55 a.m.)
A majority of voters say they’re better off than they were four years ago -- but the country overall is worse off.
In an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday, 50% of registered voters nationwide said that they and their families are better off, 34% said that they are worse off and 14% said they are about the same.
On a separate question, 58% said the country overall is worse off than it was four years ago, 38% said it was better off and 2% said it was about the same.
The poll showed Biden with a substantial lead, although it has tightened slightly since the last survey, taken just after the first debate: 53% said they supported Biden, while 42% backed Trump.
The poll of 1,000 registered voters around the country was conducted Oct. 9-12. It has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.1 percentage points.
Trump Tells Battleground States: ‘You Better Vote for Me’ (7:31 a.m.)
Down in the polls, Trump has repeatedly mock-threatened battleground states in recent days, saying that they “better vote for me.”
The rhetorical tic began in mid-September, when Trump held a rally in Freeland, Michigan.
“On November 3rd, Michigan, you better vote for me,” he said. “I got you so many damn car plants.”
He took a similar tone at a rally Tuesday in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, saying that the state needed to back him.
“You’ve had the best year you’ve ever had, and you’re going to have a better year next year,” he said. “You damn well better vote for me, Pennsylvania. You better vote for me.”
He repeated the tactic with attendees at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday.
“If I don’t get Iowa, I won’t believe that one,” he said. “I may never have to come back here again if I don’t get Iowa. I’ll never be back, you understand that?”
Trump has also told audiences in New Hampshire, Minnesota and Pittsburgh that they “better vote for me.”
Trump has even said that voters who can’t vote for him should do so. During a rally Monday in Sanford, Florida, he called on Puerto Rico to back him, even though residents of the U.S. territory have no vote for president.
“I’m not going to say the best, but I’m just about the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico,” Trump said. “You better vote for me, Puerto Rico. You better vote.”
George Floyd’s Sister Appears in Biden Campaign Ad (6:40 a.m.)
A new ad from the Biden campaign features the sister of George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police this summer, as the Democratic nominee continues to draw a contrast with Trump’s abrasive demeanor.
In the ad, released on what would have been Floyd’s 47th birthday, Bridgett Floyd talks about Biden’s compassion as soft piano music plays.
“Joe Biden reached out to the family to actually meet,” she says. “He was there to listen. He was very sincere. Biden is the change that we need.”
The ad does not mention it, but Trump’s interactions with Floyd’s family did not go as well. Floyd’s brother, Philonise, said in an interview on MSNBC in May that he felt like the president didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
“He didn’t give me an opportunity to even speak,” he said. “It was hard. I was trying to talk to him, but he just kept, like, pushing me off.”
More Than 1.6 Million Felons Can’t Vote in Battleground States
In four of the six battleground states, the number of felons who can’t vote is greater than the margin of Trump’s victory in 2016.
A report released Wednesday from the Sentencing Project estimated that 5.2 million Americans will not be able to vote in the presidential election because they have been convicted of a felony.
More than 40% of them have already completed their sentence but remain disenfranchised.
Civil rights activists seeking to restore voting rights to the formerly incarcerated have highlighted Florida, where felons cannot vote until they have paid court fines and fees which are often difficult to determine.
The report estimated that there are 233,816 disenfranchised felons in Arizona, 38,819 in Michigan, 48,823 in Pennsylvania and 69,344 in Wisconsin -- in each case more than the difference in votes between Trump and Hillary Clinton in those states in 2016.
Biden Video Calls Trump a ‘Super Spreader’
When Trump caught coronavirus, the Biden campaign briefly halted all its negative ads. Now that he’s better, they’re having some fun with it.
In a video posted on social media Wednesday, the Biden campaign caricatures Trump as the villain of a 1950s horror movie, “The Super Spreader.”
It then shows a black-and-white clip of Trump bragging about no longer having Covid-19 at a rally in Florida on Monday.
“I’ll walk in there,” Trump is shown saying. “I’ll kiss everyone in that audience. I’ll kiss the guys, and the beautiful women and everybody. I’ll just give ya a big, fat kiss.”
The video ends by encouraging people to wear a mask, social distance and “stay away from the president.”
A more serious ad released Tuesday showed the daughter of a coronavirus victim criticizing Trump’s handling of his own diagnosis.
Coming Up:
Trump will be on an hour-long televised town hall forum moderated by “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie starting at 8 p.m.
Biden will be on a 90-minute forum moderated by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos starting at 8 p.m.
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