The good news for former President Donald Trump is that his political operation 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 crimes to send his supporters into this fundraising frenzy.
In the short term, Trump’s campaign benefited in a measurable way as a Manhattan jury found that he illegally schemed to cover up an alleged affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels to help his 2016 campaign. Trump aides say the former president, who denies having a sexual encounter with Daniels, raised $53 million for a series of connected accounts in the first 24 hours after the verdict, bringing his May total to $141 million comes.
To put that in perspective, it’s almost twice what the Trump operation said it would raise in April ($76 million), which was its peak at the time. (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 gains so far. But another pressing question facing Trump is whether the dollars matter as much as the stigma of the “guilty” brand — especially in a rematch of the 2020 election where many voters’ views of the two candidates are unchanging and there is little movement in the polls.
“I think the crime hurts him more than the fundraising helps him,” said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist who served as a top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ well-financed 2020 Democratic primary campaign in Vermont.
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 break voters’ existing views of him and Biden.
“There is no doubt that the fundraising windfall the Trump campaign has seen this past week will help far more than it will hurt him in any way,” Godfrey said. “But the way you use those resources will make the difference.”
This pick could provide Trump with a huge cash injection into his campaign at a key time, with the congressional season and post-Labor Day sprint in full swing.
Trump’s senior adviser Brian Hughes labeled the New York trial as “politically motivated election interference” and said that “it is clear from the fundraising response, polling and voter enthusiasm” that Trump’s guilty verdict “completely backfired for Biden and his Democratic allies. .”
Snap polls taken after the verdict do not show much discernible movement in voters’ preferences in the race. There is slight or no movement toward Biden, but well within the margins of error. What’s clearer is the effect on Trump’s bottom line. His aides say the jury won’t have the final say.
“The real verdict comes on November 5,” Hughes said.
Biden and the Democrats have taken the lead in fundraising over the course of the presidential cycle. That’s been a meaningful benefit, said Todd Belt, director of the political management program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
“This has allowed Joe Biden to do what you want to do early in the election, which is set up field offices in the swing states,” Belt said. “The reason these field offices are so important is because you can organize volunteers and raise more funds.”
That creates a “snowball effect” for a campaign, Belt said, adding that the “new influx of money for Donald Trump will help him catch up in that regard.”
Biden’s lead
The Biden campaign raised nearly $195 million between early 2021 and April 2024, compared to Trump’s more than $124 million. The Democratic National Committee also outpaced the Republican National Committee on that score: $531 million to $497 million.
The Democratic operation has long used its fundraising advantage as an argument to silence critics, noting that it has made key investments early on in traditional campaign attributes such as organizing and media buying. Democrats have also noted that the tens of millions of dollars Team Trump has spent on legal fees related to his charges mean their party’s advantage is even clearer.
“We’ll see how the numbers shake out in July, but one thing’s for sure: Trump’s billionaire friends are backing a white-collar criminal’s campaign because they know the deal — they give him checks and he cuts their taxes while working people and the middle class pay the bill,” Biden campaign director Ammar Mousa said in a statement in response to Trump’s fundraising announcements.
But there are clear signs that Trump is closing the gap, at the very least, as the Republican National Committee has been remade in his image and more and more top-dollar donors are coming back into his fold after the Republican primaries.
The DNC narrowly outpaced the RNC in April, campaign finance documents show. And statements from both campaigns suggested that Trump’s fundraising operation as a whole exceeded Biden’s, $76 million to $51 million.
Democrats and Biden allies have downplayed the potential effects of Trump’s fundraising recovery. The campaign has said the period since the verdict has also been one of its strongest fundraising periods, but has declined to release specific figures.
And a senior Biden campaign official told NBC News that they remain confident in their fundraising operation, seeing it as more sustainable than Trump’s, with their long-standing fundraising advantage allowing them to test messages and organizing strategies in 2023 that will bear fruit in the future. fall.
Jim Messina, who served as President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign manager, agreed.
“They always knew Trump would catch up. Both sides will have the resources they need, but the truth is, what you can’t get back is time,” he told NBC News.
“Yes, they are raising money in total, but he only has 34 felonies left, so don’t get too excited about this. You’d rather not be guilty,” Messina continued.
Biden has already shifted his position to try to capitalize on Trump’s legal troubles. In the immediate aftermath of the verdict, Biden said the only way to beat Trump is through the ballot box. But at a fundraising event in the upscale New York suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut, he took a more aggressive approach, using the phrase “convicted felon” to describe his rival.
“For the first time in American history, a former president who is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of president,” Biden said. “But as disturbing as that is, what is more damaging is Donald Trump’s all-out assault on the American justice system.”
Trump also faces criminal charges in a federal case related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, a federal case alleging he mishandled classified documents and a Georgia case accusing him of illegally attempting to to cancel the 2020 result in that state.
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s organization will be able to sustain this fundraising bump — and whether its future legal troubles will help.
But campaigns are not always won by the best fundraiser. Hillary Clinton significantly outspent Trump en route to defeat in 2016, while Biden did the same in 2020 and won.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
