Rice U. expert available to comment on Trump fundraising email

EXPERT ALERT

David Ruth
713-348-6327
david@rice.edu

Rice U. expert available to comment on Trump fundraising email

HOUSTON – (June 21, 2016) – After a 24-hour negative news cycle reporting that Donald Trump has little cash on hand compared with Democrat Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Republican nominee for president issued his first large-scale email fundraising letter.

The campaign’s call to action promises donors that Trump will match dollar for dollar up to $2 million in the next 48 hours.

Mark Jones, Rice University professor of political science and a fellow in political science at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, said this today about Trump’s current political and financial situation:

“Donald Trump was able to rely on massive amounts of free media coverage during the GOP presidential primary. And as a result, he was rarely in need of campaign cash other than to support a relatively modest campaign staff.

“As he begins the long sprint toward Nov. 8, however, he will need funds in order to be able to staff and run a national campaign and purchase broadcast time in battleground states. Today he finds himself in the unenviable situation of Hillary Clinton having $42 million cash on hand compared to his reported $1.3 million.

“While Trump has demonstrated a considerable knack for generating copious amounts of free media coverage (also called ‘earned media’), unlike in the primary, he cannot hope to rely on earned media to carry him through to Nov. 8.

“That said, one advantage that Trump holds over Clinton is his unique ability to self-fund at an exceptionally high level. In addition to the importance of fundraising to run an effective campaign, Trump’s ability to raise money will also be used as a barometer by the media and others to measure his level of support among Republican elites, PACs and rank-and-file voters.”

Rice University has a VideoLink ReadyCam TV interview studio. ReadyCam is capable of transmitting broadcast-quality standard-definition and high-definition video directly to all news media organizations around the world 24/7.

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Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,910 undergraduates and 2,809 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for best quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. To read “What they’re saying about Rice,” go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.