New reports from the Federal Election Commission show that New Jersey donors donated massive amounts of money to presidential campaigns in July.
In mid-August filings from the presidential candidates’ major campaign committees, the total amount they raised from the Garden State this election cycle soared from $13.7 million to nearly $18 million during a tumultuous month that saw one candidate suffer an assassination attempt and another withdraw from the race to support his vice president, stoking fires among Republicans and Democrats, respectively.
Republicans, who had outraised Democrats by $8.1 million to $4.8 million through June, saw Trump’s campaign increase by nearly $880,000 from New Jersey donors in July, according to federal campaign finance data. Democrats, meanwhile, saw individual contributions from New Jersey to their candidates rise by nearly $3.4 million. About $2.8 million of that total came between July 21, the day Biden withdrew, and the end of the month, the data show.
Through July, the Biden and Harris campaigns had collectively raised $4.7 million in individual contributions from New Jersey residents, while Trump had raised another $4 million. However, the GOP had an overall lead early in the month, as former Gov. Chris Christie and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had collectively raised more than $3.1 million in contributions from New Jersey donors for their 2024 presidential campaigns, records show. The campaigns of Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis also collected six figures from New Jersey donors.
The flood of donations to Harris in July narrowed the gap significantly, though Republicans still held an overall advantage of about $875,000 in fundraising from Garden State donors at the start of August.
Retired donors turn red
Federal Election Commission reports for the Trump campaign through July show that the former president and GOP candidate dominated in collecting small, repeat contributions from New Jersey donors. A Roselle donor gave to Trump more than 1,100 times from July 2023 through July 2024, records show. Those contributions ranged from 59 cents to $70.27.
Although the donor described himself as a former self-employed account executive, records show that returning retired donors are a driving force behind contributions to the GOP from New Jersey.
Haley, who served the longest in the battle against Trump for the Republican nomination, received nearly 10,500 separate donations totaling nearly $1.3 million. More than half of those donations, about 5,600, came from donors who classified themselves as “retired,” records show.
Haley’s donations from retirees outnumbered those of Harris and Biden combined by nearly 2-to-1 through July — it was 3-to-1 through June — but they still paled in comparison to Trump’s. As of the end of July, retirees had made more than 67,000 individual donations to Trump’s campaign, including more than 1,800 from a single Bound Brook donor, the data show. Donations from retirees represented about two-thirds of New Jersey-based donations to the Trump campaign and more than a third of all donations directly to presidential campaigns in the state through July.
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign and now Harris’s raised about 23,000 separate donations from New Jersey residents who described themselves as “not employed,” records show. Fewer than 500 direct donations to Trump’s campaign came from people who fit that description. That total includes more than 100 donations from Trump’s longtime donor Roselle.
NJ Donors to Presidential Campaigns Show Trends
Other trends in the most recent campaign filings show that Harris and Biden have surpassed Trump in total donations from self-reported New Jersey professors, lawyers and paralegals. By contrast, residents in general contracting, plumbing and some other aspects of the construction industry have donated to Trump in larger numbers.
For the 2020 election, presidential campaigns raised more than $43.4 million directly from donors in New Jersey, with nearly $30.6 million of that going to Democratic campaigns, federal data shows. Biden’s campaign received nearly $19.2 million of those Garden State donations, while Trump’s campaign raised $12.8 million. The totals through July for the two official Democratic and Republican nominees are $11.1 million and $7.9 million, respectively, lower than what was raised in New Jersey throughout the entire 2020 election cycle, data shows.
During his presidential campaign this cycle, the Newark-born Christie raised nearly $1.9 million in his home state, from fewer than 1,900 direct individual donations to his campaign. The state-level contributions represented more than a quarter of his nationwide total. Christie’s fundraising in New Jersey benefited from large donations, though DeSantis had received the most donations of $5,000 or more in the Garden State through July, records show.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Donors Give to Trump, Harris. See Who Gets More
