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Why does Vance have terrible advance work: tiny crowds, a “spontaneous” trip to a donut shop where nobody knew he was coming, appearing on a podium stacked with cardboard boxes?

Why was the Republican convention a low-key, muted, partially empty, boring event, especially when compared to this week’s Democratic event?

It’s because Trump (and his wholly-owned subsidiary, the RNC) isn’t raising money, and he’s not spending the money he has raised:

Since the start of 2023, Trump’s official campaign committee has spent a total $117 million, compared to $330 million from the Biden-turned-Harris operation over the same period. (That doesn’t include fundraising expenses from joint fundraising committees, or funds directed to other Trump groups for his legal bills.)

Trump continued to be massively outspent in July: His campaign reported spending $24.3 million, compared to $80.7 million in spending from the Biden-turned-Harris campaign committee.

More than half of the Trump campaign’s July spending, $14.1 million, went to paid media buys, $13.5 million of which came after Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris on July 21. Direct mail ($3.4 million) and air travel ($3.3 million) accounted for the Trump campaign’s next-largest expense categories. The campaign also spent just shy of $1 million on polling.

The July spending total was a substantial increase for Trump’s operation, which had spent just shy of $10 million in June. Advertising — including TV, digital and mail — is among the easiest expense categories for campaigns to scale up in a relatively short time frame. Campaigns also get lower TV ad rates than outside groups in the months before an election.

But the totals for July were far less than what Trump was spending when he was seeking reelection four years ago. In July 2020, amid an election cycle altered by the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump’s campaign committee spent $65 million — including $34 million on placed media and $13 million on online and text message advertising. At that time, his campaign committee and the Republican National Committee also had a combined nearly 800 staffers on payroll, according to a POLITICO analysis of FEC data.

This July, the Trump campaign and the RNC had just over 300 staffers on payroll, FEC filings show. Meanwhile, the Harris campaign and the Democratic National Committee had a combined roughly 1,100 staffers last month.

The Democratic convention was clearly an expensive event, and it should have been — the free media and attention garnered by a convention probably pays back the investment on the convention ten- or hundred-fold.  I realize I’m in a bit of a bubble, but I sure don’t remember the Republican convention making much of an impact — it was a real “going through the motions” event.  As for Trump’s campaign spending, I’ll bet there are Senate campaigns that spent $10 million in June.  It’s just a pathetic effort.

The Trump superpacs are spending, of course, but some of them are run by billionaires with their own personal agendas, and if anything’s been clear in the past few years, it’s that the average Master of the Universe billionaire can barely handle assembling a ham sandwich left to their own devices, nevermind a political campaign organization.

None of this is to say that Trump’s underfunded campaign will lead to a Harris victory, but it’s hard for a bloodsucker to detach from the host once it’s gotten a good grip.  Instead of draining the RNC dry, he’s going to have to run a real campaign, and that’s a big stretch for an old man with a tiny staff.

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