Republican Primary Challenger Joe Walsh Has Raised .04% as Much Money as Trump
Although the most recent poll of the Republican presidential field chronicled by RealClearPolitics shows former congressman Joe Walsh with 1 percent support, new fundraising totals suggest even that number might be a high estimate.
According to a Federal Election Commission filing, Walsh raised $128,943.39 between the start of his campaign in August and the end of September. The filing said the Illinois Republican had about $115,000 on hand at the end of last month, slightly more than the $100,000 loan Walsh gave to his own campaign.
George Conway, a Trump critic who is married to White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, gave Walsh’s campaign $5,600, according to the FEC document.
Walsh’s donations stack up as a fraction of one percent — .04 percent to be exact — against the overall $308 million raised this year by President Donald Trump’s fundraising operation, including his campaign and the Republican National Committee.
The Trump campaign and the RNC raised $125 million in the third quarter alone, according to The New York Times.
Trump’s re-election campaign received 1.1 million individual donations in the third quarter, for an average of $44.50 per donor, Fox News reported.
Just over 98 percent of Trump’s donations came from people who gave $200 or less.
Trump’s third-quarter donations dwarfed the war chests being built by his Democratic opponents.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont led the parade of Democratic presidential candidates with a third-quarter haul of $25.3 million, followed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at $24.6 million.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was third in the fundraising race with $19.1 million, while former Vice President Joe Biden was fourth at $15.2 million, CNN reported.
Walsh is not letting the disparity in fundraising stop him from blasting the president at every opportunity, as he did during a recent campaign swing in New Hampshire, according to the Concord Monitor.
Walsh seemed to adopt the strategy that large doses of invective could make up for meager donations of cash.
Trump is “going to be impeached. He should be impeached. He’s going to be a disaster if he’s at the top of our ticket next year,” Walsh said.
“When you invite and or pressure a foreign government to screw around with our elections, that’s a betrayal of this country. Trump’s done that from the moment he got elected. He’s probably the most disloyal president this country’s ever had,” Walsh said.
Walsh also scorned fellow GOP presidential candidate Mark Sanford, a former South Carolina governor and congressman.
Sanford has said he entered the race not to defeat Trump, but to focus attention on the ballooning federal deficit and drag the Republican Party out of what Sanford considers its free-spending ways.
Walsh labeled that idea “silly.”
“I’m in this to win. This is a pain in the a–. I’ve been at this for a month. This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. I’m not in it to start a conversation about the debt,” he said.
Walsh also attacked Sanford for saying he would support his party’s nominee, which he expects to be Trump.
“Trump is the eventual nominee, Sanford’s going to vote for him. That’s like crazy. Trump’s unfit. He’s a danger to the country. Sanford’s not serious,” Walsh said.
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