By Jason Lange, Alexandra Ulmer and Stephanie Kelly
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Support from outside groups Donald Trump‘s presidential bid has spent significantly more money in recent months than groups campaigning for the Democratic President’s re-election Joe Bidenaccording to a Reuters analysis of campaign finance data.
Pro-Trump spending groups have spent more than $25 million since Trump clinched the Republican nomination on March 6, Federal Election Commission data show, compared with more than $15 million spent by Biden’s allies in the same time.
MAGA Inc., the largest pro-Trump super PAC, will report Thursday that it had $93.7 million in the bank at the end of May, up from $33 million at the end of April, according to a senior MAGA Inc. official. spoke on condition of anonymity.
Both parties have poured most of their recent spending into television attack ads as they try to influence the small segment of American voters who will decide the outcome of the Nov. 5 election.
Trump allies say the spending blitz aims to counter Biden’s early fundraising advantage. Biden’s campaign reported $84 million in the bank at the end of April, compared to $49 million reported by Trump.
“There is an effort to strategically weaken Biden’s cash advantage,” said a source familiar with MAGA Inc., who also spoke on condition of anonymity. “Right now, Trump’s campaign is able to bank every dollar it raises because its allies at MAGA Inc. carrying the weight of the advertising war against Team Biden.”
Trump’s fundraising shortfall has been exacerbated by court battles that have boosted his legal bills and made him the first US president to be convicted of crimes.
Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, are neck-and-neck in national polls, although Trump has a slight advantage in battleground states that could determine the winner of the election.
Both campaigns will report updated campaign finance figures on Thursday.
“We see spending broadly flat and know the campaign will have the resources this fall to emphasize the wide choice voters have this fall,” said a source close to the Biden campaign.
The Trump campaign said in a statement that its own fundraising was strong, driven by Trump’s conviction. The campaign highlighted that Trump raised $53 million in the 24 hours after the conviction.
Unlike political campaigns, super PACs have no fundraising restrictions but are not allowed to coordinate their ad buys with the candidates they support. They must report the expenditure shortly after it happens.
MAGA Inc. has spent about $18 million to help Trump’s campaign, much of it on a barrage of television and digital ads that have attacked Biden’s immigration policies and argued that he is too old for a second term.
By contrast, Future Forward, the largest super PAC backing Biden, has reported new spending to the FEC since March 6 totaling less than $1 million, even though it had $57 million in the bank at the end of April.
A senior Democrat with ties to the group, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group would spend heavily in the final months of the election, as it did in the 2020 presidential contest, when Biden defeated Trump.
Another Democratic super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, has spent more than $11 million to date.
Pat Dennis, the group’s president, said the group focused exclusively on female voters by running ads on issues such as abortion rights in the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“We’re really focused on the summer and setting the stage for the people who take over in the fall,” he said.
(Reporting by Jason Lange, Alexandra Ulmer and Stephanie Kelly; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Stephen Coates and Barbara Lewis)
