80% of Donald Trump's political donors are...Donald Trump
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump's campaign filings show the billionaire Republican front-runner is funding -- and making money from -- his own campaign.
In total, Trump took in $13.5 million in campaign funds. Most of that money came in the form of a $10.8 million personal loan from the candidate.
Trump also collected more than $2.6 million from individual donors. Trump has said that he is not soliciting funds from campaign donors, though Newsmax Media, which runs a conservative news site, pitched itself as the Trump campaign's exclusive online fundraising firm this summer.
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Trump's campaign, so far, is benefitting Trump's own bank account.
The single largest vendor to the Trump campaign funding was Trump himself.
He spent $826,590 in payments to his TAG Air, Inc, which owns a fleet of aircraft including his campaign jet. Additional outlays to Trump businesses include $70,915 to Trump Tower Commercial LLC and $3,000 to Trump Restaurants LLC.
Without having to shell out money on advertising -- his brash presence gathers enough attention -- Trump spent just $6.8 million in the final three months of last year. The outlay is less than half of what Ted Cruz, his nearest rival in the polls, spent during the same period.
Early in his campaign, Trump said he was willing to spend $100 million of his own money to win the Republican nomination. But propelled by his ability to generate controversy and free media, the businessman turned presidential candidate has not needed to. His first advertisements ran in early January, and he's spent relatively little on campaign staff and consultants.
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Topics Elections
Heidi Moore is a Business Editor at Mashable. She directs a team of reporters and editors in creating richly reported, smart and entertaining stories about media, startups, advertising, careers and Social Good that show that business is really a reflection of life and what we value in it.Heidi was previously a finance and economics editor at the Guardian, New York bureau chief and Wall Street correspondent at Marketplace Radio, and a financial reporter at the Wall Street JournalShe loves yoga, rooftops and taking photographs of everything.
