US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump doubled his campaign expenses last month, yet was still spending at a far slower rate than US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton.
New finance documents show Trump’s campaign spent about US$18.5 million last month. By comparison, the Clinton campaign spent about US$38 million.
The New York businessman gave his campaign another US$2 million in recent weeks. He would pledged to contribute as part of a fundraising pitch to small donors, telling them he would match their efforts up to that amount.
In all, his campaign brought in US$37 million for the month. Clinton’s campaign raised US$52 million.
Trump has continued to increase the size of his operation, putting US$5 million this week into his first batch of TV advertisements.
Clinton has been running general election advertisements for months.
Last month Trump brought on some new consultants and firms, reports to the Federal Election Commission last month show.
At the end of last month, the campaign paid US$100,000 to Cambridge Analytica, a deep-dive data firm that did business with Republican opponent Ted Cruz.
Hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, who contributed US$2 million to a pro-Trump super political action committee last month, is an investor in Cambridge.
The Trump filings also show some old ties.
Two weeks after the ouster of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign cut his firm, Green Monster Consulting, another US$20,000 check. That is about the same amount it had paid him each month while he was running the campaign.
At the time of the latest payment, Lewandowski was already on the payroll of CNN, where he is a political contributor.
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