Some Democrats are privately worrying that Hillary Clinton has been spending too much money and seeing too few results.
Clinton, who has way more cash on hand than Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has been outspending the New York real estate mogul at a rate of 15-1 but has seen her lead shrink to single digits in certain key states.
According to The Hill, senior Democrats met with Clinton in DC on Monday and mentioned a recent Florida poll that showed Trump pulling ahead in the Sunshine State. They questioned whether Clinton was really running her campaign effectively, having spent about $47 million in television ads.
Trump himself has spent next to nothing. A few SuperPACs and the NRA have run around $3 million in anti-Clinton ads, focusing only on her position on the Second Amendment.
The good news for Clinton is that the worrywarts were a minority, even among the professional strategists in the meeting, according to one source at the table. That source said the concern was largely voiced by “bed-wetters.”
But Clinton needs to start pulling ahead of Trump if she intends to sustain the lead all the way through November. Trump will likely get a polling boost from his convention speech, and while some Republicans are splitting off the party in protest, led by Ted Cruz, who is trying to make them feel better about their decision to abstain, Trump supporters are feeling stronger than ever.
Clinton is hoping that the further she gets from her official email investigation—and the public chastisements that accompanied it—the better she will do among her core constituencies. She’s pulled ahead of Trump among college-educated whites, a demographic that hasn’t gone Democratic since 1952, and she’s gaining on Trump among male voters.