A6 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2019 WSCE LATIMES.COM
THE NATION
WASHINGTON — Presi-
dent Trump is furious that
Democrats launched an im-
peachment inquiry. His re-
election team couldn’t be
happier.
“It’s a total boon,” said
Roy Bailey, the campaign’s
national finance co-chair-
man. “Money is flying in.”
Trump’s rise to political
power was fueled by a potent
mix of outrage and victim-
ization. The impeachment
inquiry thus is the ultimate
grievance since it threatens
his grip on the White House
— and the hopes of his hard-
core supporters.
So while Trump has
spewed incendiary tweets in
the week since the inquiry
formally began, his cam-
paign moved behind the
scenes to raise millions of
dollars, stoke supporters’
anger and discredit the
Democrats’ investigation
with a barrage of counter-
messaging.
The effort appears to be
working. The campaign says
it raised $8.5 million in the
first 48 hours. That helped
fuel a combined $125-million
haul for the campaign and
the Republican National
Committee during the
three-month fundraising
quarter that ended Monday,
according to an RNC official.
A Trump campaign offi-
cial said 50,000 new small-
dollar donors quickly signed
up after the impeachment
inquiry announcement, ex-
panding a valuable network
that can be tapped again
and again for dollars and vol-
unteer efforts.
Officials appealed for
support in text messages,
emails and a flood of paid
Facebook, Google and other
social media ads, all arguing
that Trump faces an exist-
ential threat from the en-
trenched Washington estab-
lishment he blames for his
woes.
“They are trying to stop
ME because I am fighting for
YOU!” reads one of the Face-
book ads.
The ad, and scores like it,
link to a 30-second video
that levels unsubstantiated
allegations of misconduct by
Joe Biden, the Democratic
presidential candidate, and
assert Democrats and the
“lapdog media” are still bit-
ter that Trump won the last
election and “want to steal
this one.”
The Trump campaign
said it planned to spend
$8 million to put the video
online and on TV, and theRepublican National Com-
mittee will spend $2 million
more for ads that largely tar-
get House Democrats over
impeachment.
So far, the Trump team
has spent the most on Face-
book, where the campaign
has long held an advantage
over Democrats in reaching
its most ardent supporters.
During the 2016 race, the
Trump campaign used
Facebook’s technology to
test thousands of variations
of a single ad to determine
which words and images
prompted the most people
to donate or volunteer.
Trump spent $2.1 million
on Facebook and $500,000 on
Google and YouTube last
week, the most in any week
in at least a year, according
to ACRONYM, a prog-
ressive nonprofit that has
tracked Trump’s digitalspending since October 2018.
The previous spending
record was in January, when
the Trump campaign spent
nearly $1.6 million on digital
ads during the partial gov-
ernment shutdown that
Trump approved in a losing
battle to force Congress to
appropriate money for his
long-promised border wall.
The impeachment inves-
tigation is centered on
whether Trump abused his
oath of office when he
pressed Ukrainian Presi-
dent Volodymyr Zelensky to
find damaging material on
Biden while withholding
congressionally approved
military aid intended to help
Ukraine battle Russian-
backed insurgents.
Trump’s campaign be-
lieves the 2020 election will
depend on getting his core
supporters to vote, not onpersuading the diminishing
number of swing voters. In
their view, the impeachment
appeals support that strate-
gy.
“In the old days, the tra-
ditional point of view on this
stuff was, ‘Why would you
talk about something that’s
a negative to you, that’s an
existential threat?’” said
Patrick Ruffini, a Republi-
can strategist not affiliated
with the Trump campaign.
But for Trump’s base, the
“panic style of messaging”
works better than “things
are great,” he said.
No Democratic challeng-
er comes close to Trump’s
spending on Facebook, and
the emphasis on impeach-
ment differs widely among
the candidates.
Pete Buttigieg has spent
the most among Democrats
on Facebook since the in-quiry began, putting up
$425,000 in ads last week.
While he supports the im-
peachment probe, his ads do
not mention the inquiry,
Ukraine or Trump.
Most instead promote a
contest for donors to attend
the Democratic candidates’
debate on Oct. 15 in Colum-
bus, Ohio, and to meet “Pete
in person.”
“We didn’t think it was
appropriate to fundraise off
a national crisis,” said
Buttigieg spokesman Chris
Meagher.
Tom Steyer, the second-
place Democratic spender
on Facebook in the last
week, has built his entire
campaign around impeach-
ment. At least so far, it’s not a
winning issue for him: He re-
mains near the bottom of
most polls.
Biden, the candidate
most directly affected by
Trump’s dealings with
Ukraine, spent just over
$100,000 on Facebook last
week. None of his ads say
“impeachment,” but he has
accused Trump and his per-
sonal attorney, Rudolph W.
Giuliani, of trying “to smear
Joe Biden and his family
with debunked conspira-
cies.”
“Did Donald Trump
break the law?” asks one
Biden ad, without offering
an answer. His ads fre-
quently show close-up pic-
tures of Trump scowling, his
lips pursed as if he has eaten
a particularly sour lemon.
Biden’s fundraising emails
similarly paint Biden as a
Trump target, and as the
Democrat most feared by
Trump.
Biden’s campaign said he
raised the most money in
one week since the early
weeks of the campaign, but
officials declined to provide
figures to back that up.Times staff writer Chris
Megerian in Washington
contributed to this report.Campaign profits from impeachment woes
Trump’s reelection
team raises millions
from riled supporters:
‘Money is flying in.’
By Noah Bierman
PRESIDENT TRUMPat a recent rally in Anaheim. The president’s campaign believes the 2020 election will
depend on getting his core supporters to vote, not on persuading the diminishing number of swing voters.Mark BosterLos Angeles TimesFREE
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