If accurate, that total is not necessarily a surprise. It's in line with the $1.8 million he loaned his campaign over the summer, according to The Wall Street Journal. And the real-estate mogul frequently boasts about how little he's spending in campaign-trail speeches and interviews.
"I figured I would have spent about $10 million by this point, right? I've spent nothing! I've spent nothing!" he exclaimed in an August interview on the Fox Business Network. "I've spent zero! I mean, zero!"
Trump explains this phenomenon by pointing to his media-coverage domination of the 2016 race. He even claimed in an interview last week that if he did spend money on campaign ads, the public would "overdose on Trump."
"I'm not spending that much money," he said on "New Hampshire Today," according to BuzzFeed. "I thought I would've spent about $20 million for advertising up until this point, right? I've spent nothing. I can't advertise because I'm getting so much coverage."
Although unsurprising, the $2 million figure shows how directly Trump is flying against conventional wisdom when it comes to presidential campaigns.
Top-tier White House contenders traditionally spend millions of dollars on campaign staff and television ads - and self-funding candidates like Trump typically put down even more. But with his celebrity status and media savvy, the billionaire candidate is getting away with running a bare-bones operation this time.
