Trump entered June with just $1.3 million in the bank, while Clinton sat on $42 million war chest

[Drunken Irishman]

47. No need for complacency but a general is vastly different than a primary.

In a primary, you're not running a 50 state campaign - or even a 20 state campaign. You're essentially focused on a collection of states to build momentum and then you use that momentum to win in other states. Trump didn't need to spend gobs of cash because his focus all along was those early primary states.

But with him at the top of the ticket, he's going to be forced to defend way more states than a typical Republican. Take Utah for example. That's like a Democrat defending Vermont, campaigning in Vermont, and yet that's what's happening to Trump. So, not only does he have to focus on states like Ohio, Virginia, Florida and maybe even North Carolina, he's also going to have to campaign in Arizona and Utah and potentially Georgia - states most Republican nominees have locked down by August so they can focus on the swing states.

That's where money becomes an issue. You've gotta build a ground game, a structure of getting out voters, especially apathetic swing voters in swing districts and you've got to smartly play to the states you can win. One of the biggest criticisms of Romney's campaign in 2012 was faulty data. They relied on voter models that projected him winning comfortably, so, they got cocky and invested in states like Pennsylvania and Minnesota despite the fact Obama was well ahead in both those states. That distracted them from Ohio and Florida and Virginia, three states Obama narrowly won that year.

Trump already believes he can compete in California and Connecticut, so, I expect to see him putting up an effort there because his campaign is so loosely run, and there just isn't the $$$ there to fund a well established campaign staff, that he, too, will be duped by the fools gold and spend less time in states HE MUST WIN.

It's very important to have money to invest in ads and staff that know how to win elections. Winning a primary is the easy part, frankly, because the way primaries are set up is that it's entirely based around momentum, which doesn't necessarily exist in a general election because every state votes at the same time.

Had there been a fifty state vote on, say, Feb 2nd, 2016, it's very likely Trump isn't the nominee right now because of that very reason.

But I agree. We can't get complacent. The country is still too divided for this election to be a slam dunk. Hell, for most of 2008, despite the GOP in disarray and McCain being a complete fucking amateur candidate, who selected a bag of potatoes as a running-mate, the election was scarily close. Even then, Obama didn't win by a huge landslide, either.

With that said, Trump is in trouble. There are a lot, A LOT of red flags here and the fact is, we're hitting the point where the candidates are going to start being defined by those red flags. What killed Romney, really, was the summer of 2012. He was hit HARD by Obama on Bain and what not and he could never fully recover.

These are defining months for Trump. But to be sure - his campaign has been ineptly run since he wrapped up the nomination. This ain't the primaries anymore. A majority of America so far ain't buying what he's selling.

Hope it continues.