Donald Trump isn’t the only one who should be nervous ahead of Monday’s Iowa Caucuses. Consultants have reason to worry that a victory for the businessman-turned presidential candidate Monday night could be a step toward them missing out on the most lucrative contest of the cycle.
Just dive into the latest FEC report filed by Trump’s unorthodox campaign, which reads like a vow of poverty for mainstream GOP consultants. What’s notable is that Trump is making good on a promise to self-fund his campaign. He’s dropped more than $10 million of his own money. But Trump has spent more on T-shirts and “Make America Great Again” hats than he did on data, digital or traditional media consultants last quarter.
In total, his campaign has dropped close to $1 million on chum — hats, buttons, T-shirts, signs. In the final quarter of 2015, large chunks of money went to companies like California-based Cali-Fame, which took in $378,066 for hats alone, Louisiana-based Ace Specialties, Maxim Advertising, which is based in Newton, Iowa, and Colorado-based Wizbang Solutions. Pens were even a notable expense. Trump dropped a field organizer’s monthly salary with Pen Company of America, which billed his campaign $4,366.54 for “collateral: pens.”
Adding to the show business feel of Trump’s FEC filing is the amount he dropped to help stage his trademark large rallies. Trump paid more than $90,000 to Alexandria, Va.-based Event Strategies for “event staging” last quarter. Another $15,000 went to Fast Lane Productions for the same service, while Telion Corp. also received $90,000. Compare that to $17,650 the campaign paid Oklahoma-based Command Solutions and $27,300 it paid to Texas-based FourOneThree Communications for field consulting ahead of the grassroots-centric contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Trump likes to boast about how he’s his own best advisor. “I’m self-funding my campaign; no one can tell me what to say or do,” he recently told The Wall Street Journal. “I do better that way.”
But that didn’t stop him from hiring New York-based management firm C&M Transcontinental, which notably worked with Trump-backer Sarah Palin’s SarahPAC. It was paid $61,000 last quarter. Meanwhile, Strategy Resources was paid $31,000 for strategy consulting while longtime Trump advisor Dan Scavino was paid $30,000 through his firm Scavino & Associates. Those are drop-in-the-bucket amounts typically paid to a presidential consulting team.
Now, one media consultant and a non-partisan data vendor were also notable line items in Trump’s latest report. Arlington, Va.-based Rick Reed Media took in $300,000 from the businessman’s campaign last quarter while L2 was paid $235,000.
Other mainstream consultants were also on the Trump payroll. South Carolina consultant Jim Merrill, who also serves as a state representative, took in more than $75,000 to bring his total payment from the Trump campaign this cycle to roughly $255,000 for strategic consulting through his company Geechee Communications.
Bradley Crate’s Red Curve Solutions, which did compliance on Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, took in $29,000 last quarter. His firm has billed some $125,000 to the Trump campaign this cycle.