The good news for the former president donald trump is that his political operation says it raised a staggering nine-figure sum in May, including a flood of donations at the end of the month. The bad news: He had to be convicted of 34 criminal charges to whip his supporters into this fundraising frenzy.
In the short term, Trump’s campaign benefited measurably from a Manhattan jury’s finding that he illegally planned to cover up an alleged affair with pornographic actress Stormy Daniels in order to help his 2016 campaign. the former president, who denies having a sexual encounter with Daniels, raised $53 million to a series of connected accounts in the first 24 hours after the verdict, bringing his total to May to $141 million.
To put that in perspective, that’s almost double what the Trump operation said it had raised in April ($76 million), which at that time was its upper limit. (The byzantine structure of presidential fundraising makes it difficult to confirm these totals in real time, especially before mandatory filings with the Federal Election Commission.)
It’s a financial turning point for a Trump team that has lagged far behind President Joe Biden’s campaign in fundraising, one of the Democrat’s measurable advantages so far. But another pressing question facing Trump is whether dollars matter as much as the stigma of the “guilty” tag — particularly in a 2020 election rematch, where many voters’ opinions of the two candidates are set in stone, with little change in polls.
“I think crime hurts him more than fundraising helps him,” said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who served as a top adviser on Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ well-funded 2020 Democratic primary campaign.
Rob Godfrey, a Republican strategist based in South Carolina, said the key for Trump is whether he can find a way to use the money to disrupt voters’ existing views about him and Biden.
“There is no doubt that the fundraising windfalls the Trump campaign has seen over the last week will be far more helpful than hurting him in any way,” Godfrey said. It will make all the difference.”
The sum could provide Trump with a massive injection of funds into his campaign at an important time, as he heads into convention season and the post-Labor Day race.
Calling the New York trial “politically motivated election interference,” Trump senior adviser Brian Hughes said “it is clear from the fundraising response, the polling and voter enthusiasm” that Trump’s guilty verdict Trump “completely backfired on Biden and his Democratic allies.” .”
Snapshot polls conducted after the verdict did not show much discernible movement in voter preferences in the race, showing slight or no movement towards Biden, but well within the margins of error. What is clearer is the effect on Trump’s bottom line. His advisers say the jury will not have the final say.
“The true verdict will be released on November 5th,” Hughes said.
Biden and Democrats have been in charge of fundraising throughout the presidential cycle. That’s been a significant advantage, according to Todd Belt, director of the political management program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
“It allowed Joe Biden to do what you want to do at the start of the election, which is set up field offices in swing states,” Belt said. “The reason these local offices are really important is because you can organize volunteers and get involved in more fundraising.”
This creates a “snowball effect” for the campaign, Belt said, adding that “the new influx of money for Donald Trump will help him catch up in that regard.”
Biden’s advantage
Biden’s campaign raised nearly $195 million from the start of 2021 through April 2024, compared to Trump’s more than $124 million. The Democratic National Committee also surpassed the Republican National Committee in that period – between $531 million and $497 million.
The Democratic operation has long used its fundraising advantage as an argument to calm critics, noting that it has made early and important investments in traditional campaign trappings like organizing and acquiring media outlets. Democrats have also noted that the tens of millions of dollars the Trump team has spent on legal fees tied to their allegations mean their party’s advantage is even more pronounced.
“We’ll see how the numbers actually change in July, but one thing is certain: Trump’s billionaire friends are supporting the campaign of a white-collar crook because they know the deal – they gave him checks and he cut his taxes while workers and the middle class foot the bill,” Biden campaign rapid response director Ammar Mousa said in a statement responding to fundraising ads from Trump’s orbit.
But there are clear signs that Trump is closing the gap, at least now that the Republican National Committee has been remade in his image and more and more big-ticket donors are returning to his fold after the GOP primaries.
The DNC only narrowly outperformed the RNC in April, campaign finance documents show. AND statements released by both campaigns suggested that Trump’s fundraising operation as a whole surpassed Biden’s, by $76 million to $51 million.
Democrats and Biden allies have downplayed the possible effects of Trump’s fundraising recovery. The campaign stated that the post-verdict period was one of its stronger fundraising periods as wellbut declined to release specific numbers.
And a senior Biden campaign official told NBC News that they remain confident in their fundraising operation because they consider it more durable than Trump’s, with their long-standing fundraising advantage allowing them to spend 2023 testing organizational messages and strategies that will pay dividends in the fall.
Jim Messina, who served as President Barack Obama’s campaign manager in 2012, agreed.
“They always knew Trump would get to them. Both sides will have the resources they need, but the truth is: what can’t be recovered is time,” he told NBC News.
“Yes, they are raising money overall, but he still received 34 criminal charges, so don’t get too excited about that. You’d rather not be blamed,” Messina continued.
Biden has already changed his position to try to take advantage of Trump’s legal problems. Immediately after the verdict, Biden said the only way to defeat Trump is at the polls. But at a fundraising event in the upscale New York suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut, he took a more aggressive approach by using the phrase “convicted criminal” to describe his rival.
“For the first time in American history, a former president who is a convicted felon is now running for president,” Biden said. “But as disturbing as this is, more damaging is the all-out attack that Donald Trump is making on the American justice system.”
Trump also faces criminal charges in a federal case related to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, a federal case alleging he mishandled classified documents, and a case in Georgia in which he is accused of illegally trying to overturn the 2020 result in that state.
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s organization will be able to sustain this fundraising shock – and whether its future legal troubles will help it.
But campaigns aren’t always won by the biggest fundraiser. Hillary Clinton significantly outspent Trump on her way to defeat in 2016, while Biden did the same in 2020 and won.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
