Maybe it was all those red MAGA caps they bought.

Donald Trump’s “sprawling political operation” raised more than $1 billion since he was inaugurated in 2017, and now, two weeks before Election Day 2020, most of it is gone, reports the Associated Press.

“They spent their money on unnecessary overhead, lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous activity by the campaign staff and vanity ads,” Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican consultant and Trump critic, told the AP.

“You could literally have 10 monkeys with flamethrowers go after the money, and they wouldn’t have burned through it as stupidly,” Murphy said.

“For Trump, it’s a familiar, if not welcome, position,” the AP says. “In 2016, he was vastly outraised by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton but still pulled off a come-from-behind win. This time around, though, he was betting on a massive cash advantage to negatively define Biden and to defend his own record.” It was a bad bet.

As the Biden campaign floods key states with TV advertising, “some [Trump] campaign aides privately acknowledge they are facing difficult spending decisions,” the AP says.

Those tough decisions apparently include cancelling major ad buys in battleground Midwestern states like Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.

The news service says several outside pro-Trump groups are rallying to the president’s aid. But maybe not enough of them.

Biden and his allies “are on pace to dump $142 million into ads in the closing days of the campaign, outspending Republicans by more than 2-to-1,” the AP says, citing data from CMAG/Kantar, an ad-tracking firm.

The news agency reviewed Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (RNC) expenditures and found striking examples of profligate spending:

  • A $10 million Super Bowl ad, before Trump even had a challenger.
  • More than $39 million paid to companies controlled by Trump’s former campaign manager, part of which was used to buy “a fleet of luxury vehicles.”
  • More than $273 million paid to Delaware-based American Made Media Consultants, whose owners have not been disclosed.
  • Nearly $100,000 spent on bulk copies of Donald Trump Jr.’s book “Triggered,” which helped propel it to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list for a couple of weeks in November.
  • At least $35.2 million spent on Trump merchandise — no doubt including a lot of those MAGA caps.
  • TV ad buys totaling $1.6 million in the Washington, D.C., media market, “an overwhelmingly Democratic area where Trump has little chance of winning but where he is a regular TV watcher.”
  • Legal costs of $38.7 million during the bitter dispute that led to Trump’s impeachment by the Democratic-led House of Representatives.

There’s plenty more, but you get the picture.

Meanwhile, the AP says, “There are signs Trump’s grassroots fundraising operation has slowed. Once a driving force, the campaign is now spending about 77 cents for every dollar it raises, typically through online ads asking supporters to chip in a few dollars.

“Between July and September, it cost the campaign $181 million to raise $235 million through such small contributions.”

One major Trump donor, Dan Eberhart, told the AP that “many Republican donors are now focused on keeping control of the Senate in GOP hands — not Trump’s chances of winning.”