The Republican Party has reportedly issued an ultimatum to the Donald Trump campaign: get serious or get your own donors.
GOP Chairman Reince Priebus hasn’t been thrilled with the Trump campaign since Donald Trump—it seems, jokingly—refused to unequivocally endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan in the Wisconsin primary.
And last week, Time reports, Priebus had a series of phone calls with the nominee, threatening that if Trump didn’t start taking his Presidential run seriously, Reince was going to reroute money headed Trump’s way to down-ticket and state level races, where Republicans are actually winning.
Trump denies the call ever happened, telling Time, “Reince Priebus is a terrific guy. He never said that. Why would they state that when I am raising millions of dollars for them?”
It’s obviously a rhetorical question, but if Trump were to take a look at his poll numbers, he’d see a clear negative trend, his numbers falling steadily since hitting a high-water mark post-Republican National Convention. Swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania are now within the margin of error, and Senate campaigns there are panicking. Voters in South Carolina, a Republican mainstay, are now evenly split on the two parties.
And while Ohio is definitely within Trump’s reach, his campaign is having trouble hanging on to the all-important Presidential bellwether, Hamilton County. They’re just points behind, but haven’t opened a campaign office, haven’t appointed any local leadership, and are relying on RNC staff to marshal grassroots Ohio voters.
It seems like the RNC is preparing, though, to cut and run. If the Senate and House are in doubt, and Donald Trump is certain to lose, it only makes sense to reconfigure your spending and direct funds to places where a win is still possible (and very necessary).
Priebus also has to keep his coalition together; since Republicans haven’t coalesced around Trump the way the GOP expected, dumping Trump may be the only way to preserve the party. It’s just a question of how long Priebus waits to pull the plug.
Trump still has time. There are 90 days until the election, October is the busiest month for Presidential campaigns and nearly a quarter of voters are still undecided. But he will have to take action, and fast.
