Money Race Accelerates For Hillary Clinton And Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both had a second month of strong fundraising in July, the month that they claimed their parties' nominations.

In monthly reports filed Saturday night with the Federal Election Commission, Trump reported raising $36.7 million, his best month of the campaign. The total includes $2 million he contributed in a matching contributions drive.

Hillary For America reported receipts of $52.3 million, more than in any previous month, including her first White House run in 2008. Her campaign has $58.5 million in cash-on-hand, almost exactly $20 million more than Trump.

The campaign claimed $103 million on hand for itself and two joint fundraising committees, the Hillary Victory Fund and Hillary Action Fund. The joint committees can use higher contribution limits; contributions are distributed among the campaign and national and state Democratic committees. But the $103 million figure isn't official; the joint committees don't file reports again until Oct. 15.

Donald J. Trump For President Inc. and the Republican National Committee have a similar arrangement, but did not announce totals for the Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again committees.

Spending was more lopsided: $34.5 million by Clinton, $18.5 million by Trump.

Much of the difference was TV ads, which Clinton's campaign is aggressively buying. Only last week the Trump campaign began airing its first ads since the primaries.

As with the nominees, the Democratic National Committee outraised the Republican National Committee. But it also spent more, so the RNC finished July with $34.5 million on hand, the DNC just $10.1 million — although that's also the DNC's biggest cash-on-hand number for the 2015-16 cycle.

Priorities USA Action, the primary superPAC supporting Clinton, reported receipts of $11.9 million and $40.2 million cash-on-hand, both up slightly from June. Great America PAC, the only Trump superPAC that filed a monthly report, said it raised $2.5 million, a few thousand dollars less than June. Its available cash also fell slightly, to $983,155.

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