Trump being frugal on campaign spending

[Mr. Morden]

Sean Hannity just asked Trump if he's prepared to spend hundreds of millions of his own money in order to win the White House, and he said yes:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/republicans/11797763/Donald-Trump-prepared-to-spend-hundreds-of-millions-on-presidential-campaign.html

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However, the WSJ says that, at least for now, Trump is unwilling to put up much $:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-is-frugal-with-his-cash-in-republican-presidential-race-1439335893

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Also:

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Whether he's ultimately willing to put up the $ that'll be needed could be a big determining factor for how long Trump-mania lasts.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

I don't think Trump needs to spend much money at the moment given the constant media attention thrown at him.

I mean the Republican debate was the largest event for a non sports cable program. 24 million viewers! And we all know Trump was primarily responsible for that.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/republican-debate-audience-was-the-biggest-ever-for-a-nonsports-cable-event-1438992539

[Mr. Morden]

I don't think Trump needs to spend much money currently given the constant media attention thrown at him.

As the story notes though, it's not just a matter of campaign ads.  He also doesn't seem interested in spending money to secure ballot access in every state.  Granted, those deadlines won't start coming up for a while, but he'll need to get organized on this stuff in the next few weeks, or he could miss getting his name on several state ballots, like Gingrich and Santorum did in 2012*.

* Technically, I think they just missed Virginia, but they also didn't fill full delegate slates in several other states, so there were some congressional districts in which votes for them were wasted.

[Donald Trump 2016 !]

That's definitely an issue he needs to fix. If Trump truly wants to become the nominee, he needs to get as many delegates going into the RNC. The establishment wing of the Republican Party will most likely try to screw over Trump by uniting behind an establishment candidate and possibly creating new super delegates to grant to this candidate.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

True that, he's getting a ton of free publicity. 18 million hits in the news in the last month. Meanwhile Bernie Sanders is totally being ignored with only 300,000 hits, despite having the largest rallies, and similar polling to Trump.

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

He gets hours of free advertising every day when the media obsesses over the ridiculous things he says and the other candidates say about him. Of course he doesn't need to spend money on commercials.

But not working on getting ballot access could embarrass him later on - lest we forget the 2012 GOP primary in Virginia when it was just Mittens and Ron Paul because nobody else had their act together.

[Maxwell]

To me this is evidence that Trump doesn't really want to be President, that he's trolling the system (which should seem obvious).

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

If it gets down to it I think there's a very good chance the establishment will cut him out of the race by denying him ballot access. They're willing to go to extreme measures to stop the Trumpnado, and if it keeps up they're going to have to.

[Higgs]

If it gets down to it I think there's a very good chance the establishment will cut him out of the race by denying him ballot access. They're willing to go to extreme measures to stop the Trumpnado, and if it keeps up they're going to have to.

The problem is if they do something like that then it's almost guaranteed Trump runs 3rd party. What's worse for the establishment, Trump being the nominee or running third party?

[tpfkaw]

If it gets down to it I think there's a very good chance the establishment will cut him out of the race by denying him ballot access. They're willing to go to extreme measures to stop the Trumpnado, and if it keeps up they're going to have to.

The problem is if they do something like that then it's almost guaranteed Trump runs 3rd party. What's worse for the establishment, Trump being the nominee or running third party?

Being the nominee.  They'd rather have a chance than none.

[publicunofficial]

If it gets down to it I think there's a very good chance the establishment will cut him out of the race by denying him ballot access. They're willing to go to extreme measures to stop the Trumpnado, and if it keeps up they're going to have to.

The problem is if they do something like that then it's almost guaranteed Trump runs 3rd party. What's worse for the establishment, Trump being the nominee or running third party?

Being the nominee.  They'd rather have a chance than none.

It's no chance either way. Trump as the nominee is a probable loser, but a Trump-GOP-Clinton is a certain Hillary plurality. Especially in SF's scenario above, where Trump would probably gain support if the GOP were to do something so brazen as to boot one of the front-runners of the race off of the ticket.

[Maxwell]

There is a far bigger chance of an absolute flame-out in Trump support as a third party candidate.

[tpfkaw]

If it gets down to it I think there's a very good chance the establishment will cut him out of the race by denying him ballot access. They're willing to go to extreme measures to stop the Trumpnado, and if it keeps up they're going to have to.

The problem is if they do something like that then it's almost guaranteed Trump runs 3rd party. What's worse for the establishment, Trump being the nominee or running third party?

Being the nominee.  They'd rather have a chance than none.

It's no chance either way. Trump as the nominee is a probable loser, but a Trump-GOP-Clinton is a certain Hillary plurality. Especially in SF's scenario above, where Trump would probably gain support if the GOP were to do something so brazen as to boot one of the front-runners of the race off of the ticket.

If Trump's the nominee there's no way the "establishment" is getting all the plumb DC appointed positions, lobbying connections and strings to pull, etc., even if he wins.  They'd do better under Hillary.  So they'd much rather have one of their guys in the race and hope that Trump gets squeezed like John Anderson.

[Mr. Morden]

This article offers a counterpoint:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/an-iowa-surprise-donald-trump-is-actually-trying-to-win/2015/08/13/564a9f50-4142-11e5-8e7d-9c033e6745d8_story.html

OK, Trump isn't spending $ on ads, and he doesn't seem to be well organized on making sure he gets his name on primary ballots in every state, but he is investing in the ground game in Iowa:

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