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Weeks after the Republican presidential primary became a two-person race between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley, the outside spending groups fueling the contest disclosed their financial health—and showed tens of millions of dollars going up in smoke.
Those filings reveal that, while Trump still dominates the polls, his political machine is a cash incinerator, burning tens of millions of dollars in donor money, chiefly to subsidize his increasingly costly personal legal bills. Still, the operation supporting Trump’s much-hyped former rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, fared worse by most measures, even without the additional self-imposed, self-serving burden of legal costs. DeSantis’ operation churned through more than $160 million only to see him quit after receiving about 23,000 votes in Iowa.