Puny war chest, puny finger, puny....

Trump's puny war chest rattles GOP 

'I have a state Senate client that has more in the bank,' said one Republican operative.

By Daniel Strauss

They knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad.

Donald Trump's newly released fundraising figures proved so anemic that Republican operatives are still shaking their heads and rubbing their eyes to make sure they read the numbers correctly.

The presumptive Republican nominee — who frequently boasts about his vast personal fortune — reported a paltry $1.3 million cash on hand Monday evening, a total not even in the same ballpark as Hillary Clinton’s $42.5 million.

"It's low for a Senate race, much less a presidential race," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who formerly worked for Sen. Marco Rubio.

"I have a state Senate client that has more in the bank," said another GOP operative formerly aligned with Rubio’s campaign. The number was "almost so low that it's not even comprehendable."

After enduring an evening of Twitter mockery over his lack of cash, Trump on Tuesday moved to remedy his situation by sending out the campaign’s first fundraising email — with an all-caps subject line reading "THE FIRST ONE."

Republicans already worry it may be too little, too late.

"Republicans have been hoping that the Trump team would put together an organized fundraising effort, and in mid-May they were saying the right things about bringing in experienced bundlers and donors to lead a victory effort," said Charlie Spies, a former Republican National Committee counsel. "This report shows that that effort to date has been a failure. It's not going to inspire donors to invest, and most importantly for donors is that Donald is still holding out the possibility of using their donor money to pay back his loans to the campaign."

By insisting on his ability to self-fund during the primary, Trump failed to build the kind of fundraising base that will enable him to compete on an even playing field with Clinton, said Eric Tanenblatt, a member of House Speaker Paul Ryan's finance team and former Jeb Bush supporter.

"I was very involved in Mitt Romney's fundraising effort in 2008, and immediately after he got out of the primary he got his team together and he said we all need to get behind John McCain, and I ended up raising more money that year for John McCain than I did for Mitt Romney by the time the election ended," Tanenblatt said. "There wasn't that effort with regard to the Trump campaign because the Trump campaign didn't raise money on their own and didn't reach out to supporters of the other candidates like donors are accustomed. Typically, the nominee is the one who is magnanimous and reaches out to the supporters of the other campaigns and unifies and works to unify the party. I don't think that happened to the extent it should have."

Defending his campaign's financial situation on Tuesday, Trump pointed out that he could simply reach into his own wallet "if needs be."

"There could be unlimited 'cash on hand,' as I would put up my own money, as I have already done through the primaries, spending over $50 million dollars," Trump said in a statement, referring to the approximate amount he has lent to his campaign. "Our campaign is leaner and more efficient, like our government should be.”

Still, those who worked for Trump's vanquished rivals, while fretting that Clinton’s war chest so dramatically eclipses Trump's, were unable to resist the temptation to knock the real estate mogul's funding strategy.

"I thought he was self funding? ;)," a chief strategist for one of the most outspoken opponents of Trump early in the GOP primary wrote in an email.

Several Republicans argued that it's unlikely that the GOP donor class will make a mad rush to close the money gap between Clinton and Trump, since there's still a strong distaste for Trump among some donors. Those feelings go both ways: One Republican donor who recently met with then-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski recalled him suggesting that Trump strongly disliked asking major GOP donors for money.

Lewandowski did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Most of the donors that have been loyal Republican supporters over the past few election cycles have been vilified by Trump, and he said that he could win without them and was going to self-fund, so they're not inspired to jump on board with significant donations," said Spies. "What would possibly move them to support him would be across-the-board enthusiasm about the nominee or a bandwagon effect. I mean, if all your friends are giving, you don't want to be left out, but this number is an indication that none of your friends are giving, so why would you be the guy out front supporting Trump when nobody else is?"

A former bundler for Jeb Bush was even more direct about his disinterest in helping Trump.

"This is a guy who lent himself $30 [million] or $40 million so chuckleheads and suckers like me would go and raise money for him and then pay himself back. This is a total fraud. He's a fraud," the former Bush bundler said, referring to the fact that Trump loaned his campaign the cash and could still repay himself. "There's a universe of, I don't know, is it 50 percent, is it 30 percent, of the bundler class, who's not going to [contribute]. So that's part of it. And I think we're just not going to stick our necks out for that. This isn't a situation like Ben Carson, where he's blowing through money like nobody's business. I don't think that’s blowing through tons of money. They didn't have a huge staff to begin with. They're not fully staffed to run a national campaign."

The question now, Tanenblatt said, is what Trump does going forward in terms of picking a vice-presidential candidate and what he says in public. That could determine whether his fundraising picks up or not.

"I think that says a lot about him as a candidate,” Tanenblatt said. “That's probably the biggest decision that he's going to make in the campaign, so that will send a signal."

David Tamasi, a former fundraiser for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's presidential campaign, stressed that it's still a long way until Election Day, and he said Republicans shouldn’t read too much into May fundraising numbers.

"It's easy to look at May and compare that to somebody who's had a 25-year start to make some sort of comparison, none of which are flattering, but I think it's an inaccurate portrayal of where things will be once things get hot," Tamasi said.