Trump US rallies leave behind unpaid dues, again and again
Al Jazeera
Donald Trump owes US cities for costs associated with putting on a rally including security expenses and police overtime.
In the United States, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump faces a growing pile of missed payments for rallies and legal bills during his current bid for the presidency, previous campaigns, and in the private sector.
This comes only weeks before the 2024 general election, where he is set to face off against Democratic presidential candidate and US Vice President Kamala Harris, who holds a tight lead in several key polls. A Marist poll out on Wednesday shows her leading the former US president by five points, four points from a Morning Consult poll and four points from an Economist/YouGov poll.
Harris just surpassed $1bn in fundraising and has, in the past three months, raised nearly twice as much as the Trump campaign. The Trump team is experiencing a decline in small-dollar donors, with contributions of $200 or less now making up fewer than a third of donations. At this point in the 2020 election cycle, those contributions accounted for nearly half of all donations, according to an analysis by the Associated Press and Open Secrets, a non-profit organisation based in Washington, DC.
The Trump campaign’s financial challenges are only underscored by the growing list of parties to whom he and the entities he represents owe money.
While campaigns across the political spectrum have occasionally missed payments, including US Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign in 2016, Trump’s failure to meet payment deadlines stands out due to its long-term pattern.