NEW YORK, July 16:Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are dominating the fight for campaign cash in the Republican presidential contest, according to federal filings made public.
While some struggled, like former Vice President Mike Pence, others reported significant hauls that help ensure the GOP’s 2024 primary will be crowded for the foreseeable future.
On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has quickly amassed a sizeable fortune. But longshot Democratic primary opponent Robert Kennedy Jr. Also raised enough to ensure he won’t be ignored.
Overall, the 2024 presidential class’s second-quarter filings with the Federal Election Commission, covering the period between April 1 and June 30, leave unanswered several questions.
For example, the total number of individual donors for each campaign, a figure tied directly to GOP debate participation, won’t be known until the end of the month.
And each candidate’s allied super PACs, which in some cases account for the majority of their campaign’s cash, won’t file the latest figures until the end of the month.
Still, the federal reports offer several insights six months before the first primary votes are cast.
While Trump is leading most polls, he and DeSantis are in a tier of their own on the fundraising front.
Trump’s team recently confirmed that his joint fundraising operation — which splits the money between Trump’s campaign and the Save America PAC — received USD 35 million in the second quarter.
The campaign did not say how much of that USD 35 million went to the campaign and how much went to Save America, which has covered non-campaign-related expenses in the past, including Trump’s legal bills.
The average donation to Trump’s 2024 campaign now stands at USD 34, evidence, the campaign said, of his grassroots backing.
Earlier in the week, DeSantis announced raising USD 20 million for the six weeks he was in the race.
The Florida governor’s allied super PAC, which is legally barred from coordinating with the campaign, said it raised a stunning USD 130 million since the committee launched in March. More than half of that came from a state-level political committee once controlled by DeSantis.
Regardless of where it came from, DeSantis’ fundraising will buy him some time to strengthen his candidacy as he struggles to catch Trump in the polls.
The fundraising numbers carry additional significance because they are tied directly to the GOP’s first presidential debate next month.
Beyond a 1 per cent polling threshold, the Republican National Committee has announced that candidates must have a minimum of 40,000 unique donors with at least 200 unique donors per state or territory, in 20 states and territories.
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and conservative businessman Vivek Ramaswamy announced in recent days they had reached the 40,000-donor threshold. Pence has yet to make such an announcement.
Saturday’s federal filings do not provide a complete accounting of such figures, which won’t be available until the end of the month.
Overall, Haley’s campaign raised USD 7.3 million in the second quarter and ended June with USD 9.3 million in the bank. That’s as the main pro-Haley super PAC claimed USD 17 million cash on hand.
Scott raised USD 6.1 million since announcing his campaign in May. And Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old entrepreneur, raised more than USD 7.7 million in the quarter, including lending his campaign USD 5 million from his own personal fortune. He finished the quarter with more than USD 9 million on hand.
Christie, in the race for just 25 days of the second quarter, raised USD 1.65 million through his campaign and reported nearly USD 1.6 million in the bank as of June 30.
Pence raised less than USD 1.2 million and finished the quarter with nearly USD 1.1 million in the bank, according to his federal filing.
He still may ultimately hit the 40,000-donor threshold to qualify for the opening debate, but the extraordinary possibility remains that the former vice president might find himself excluded from the August 23 primetime affair.
Pence has struggled to find his footing since launching his campaign in early June.
A lifelong conservative and staunch Trump loyalist while in office, Pence has been vilified by the GOP base for refusing to block the certification of Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021, as Trump insisted.
The former vice president had no legal standing to block the election results despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, which sparked a violent uprising at the US Capitol at which radicalized Trump supporters chanted for Pence to be hanged.
Others appears to be struggling to attract donations as well.
Former Arkansas Gov. Hutchinson announced a fundraising total of more than USD 7,43,000 including his principal campaign and his joint fundraising committee.
On Friday, he said that he received contributions from 3,928 unique donors from April to June. And since July 1, he claimed contributions from another 2,516 unique donors.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, the only Hispanic candidate in the Republican primary, raised USD 9,45,000 since launching his campaign two weeks before the end of the quarter. California conservative Larry Elder raised just USD 4,67,000.
Biden and the Democratic National Committee have raised more than USD 72 million for his reelection in the 10 weeks since he announced his 2024 candidacy.
The president’s fundraising total includes donations to his campaign and to a network of joint fundraising arrangements with the national and state parties.
While that’s a huge sum, President Barack Obama raised USD 85.6 million during the April-to-June quarter in 2011 when he launched his campaign for a second term, although he announced his candidacy three weeks earlier.
The Biden campaign said the total came from nearly 4,00,000 donors, and that 97 per cent of donations were under USD 200 and more than 30 per cent of donors had not given to Biden in 2020.
Biden is especially well positioned, at least compared with Republicans, because he can devote his money toward the general election. The incumbent president faces only token opposition in the Democratic Party’s nomination contest, although one of his opponents, Kennedy, has raised enough money to ensure he won’t be ignored completely.
Kennedy’s campaign raised nearly 6.4 million for the quarter and had USD 4.5 million in the bank as of June 30. A pro-Kennedy super PAC, meanwhile, said it has raised more than USD 10 million so far. (AP)
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