“Did Trump even spend $252MM throughout his entire campaign?”
trump self-funded only his own primary, and spent on the order of $66 million of his own money according to the articles i could find ... even there, it looks like $20 million was raised from small donors for the primary campaign ...
My college buddy won a state legislature seat and when they asked him how much he planned to spend, he said “Just enough to win”. I think that was Trump’s approach as well.