Donald J. Trump hosts private dinners at Mar-a-Lago three nights a week, inviting Republican mega-capitalists to meet him three nights a week as he struggles to address a huge funding shortfall against President Biden. They are chatting and laughing.
According to people familiar with the sessions, no money was requested from participants at the dinners, which included Oracle co-founder and billionaire Larry Ellison and sugar magnate Pepe Fanjul. It was also included. But Trump’s campaign and advisers to his super PAC hope the charm offensive will ultimately yield political and financial benefits.
One of the most pressing issues facing Mr. Trump is the financial disparity he and his allies now face with Mr. Biden and the Democratic Party. Biden’s campaign announced Sunday that it raised $53 million in February and entered March with $155 million in cash on hand for the party. The latest totals for the Trump operation have not been made public, but his campaign and Republican National Committee accounts had about $40 million at the end of January.
Trump heads into the general election with a lead over Biden in opinion polls. But Biden took full advantage of one of the advantages of incumbency, amassing cash and building a political operation faster than his challenger.
Despite years of professing his vast wealth and boasting of wanting to “drain the swamp,” the highly transactional former president is once again relying on other people’s cash, leaving Mar-a-Lago with millions of dollars. They are turning it into a hub for millionaires and people with their own assets. agenda. One potential leverage point with the biggest Republican capitalists is the tax cut package that Trump signed into law in 2017. Many of these tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2025, but Biden has vowed not to extend them to the nation’s highest earners. .
In presidential elections, money often matters less than downvotes. Voters naturally pay attention to candidates, especially Mr. Trump, and by fall, all key states are flooded with ads.
But recent presidential elections have been so excruciatingly close that everything counts, and Trump is preparing to face an especially large avalanche of Democratic spending this year. This week, just one union announced plans to spend $200 million, 10 times the cash reserves of a major Trump super PAC. The financial advantage could help Democrats tilt or widen the battlefield map in their favor.
In a sign that the Trump administration is in dire need of cash, at least two donors who pledged seven-figure donations to support Trump this year instead received eight-figure checks (or more than $10 million). I was asked if I could reduce the amount. said a person familiar with the request.
These are unusually dangerous times for Trump.
The former president faces a subsiding fiscal crisis at the same time that he is being considered the Republican nominee. The first is the state of political funding. Others are much more personal.
Mr. Trump recently posted bail of $91.6 million in a civil suit accusing him of sexual abuse and defamation of New York author E. Jean Carroll. He must also raise funds within days to pay the roughly $450 million bail judgment in a New York civil fraud case against his business. And as his first criminal trial approaches, legal costs are mounting for him. The Save America PAC, which pays Trump’s lawyers and some of his witnesses, is expected to be depleted by the summer at its current rate of spending.
Some of Mr. Trump’s allies predict he has enough campaign cash to win, even if it is less than Mr. Biden.
Tommy Hicks Jr., former co-chairman and treasurer of the Republican National Committee, said, “Hillary Clinton had a huge lead over President Trump, but her connection to the American people was the difference.” Told.
Brian Ballard, a Republican lobbyist, fundraiser and Mar-a-Lago member, said Trump is “incredibly committed” to fighting for political capital.
“He understands that the only advantage the Biden campaign has is financial resources,” Ballard said, adding, “He also understands that he needs to do everything in his power to counteract that.”
To prepare for collapse, Trump’s advisers have begun an aggressive and rapid takeover of the RNC, including installing his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair. She intends to focus on some policies. Strengthen fundraising. The Trump campaign imposed mass layoffs in some departments on Monday and plans to move all of the party’s finance and digital fundraising staff to the former president’s Florida headquarters by the end of the month.
In an early sign of Democratic dominance, Mr. Biden visited Wisconsin this week to promote the 44 party and campaign offices he would open in the state, while Mr. Trump’s team also announced layoffs and layoffs of regional political staff at the RNC. Forced layoffs were carried out. To reapply for my job.
For now, the Trump campaign is ramping up its program for mid-size donors and plans to conserve cash costs by holding fewer rallies than it did at the end of the primary season.
On Thursday, Trump New community chest account Working with the National Party and about 40 state political parties, it called it the Trump 47 Committee and was able to directly raise more than $800,000 in bulk funds. A fancy dinner is planned in Palm Beach in early April to fill the new account’s coffers. Donors have pledged more than $25 million, one of the people familiar with the plan said.
Mr. Trump himself is said to be concerned about the disparity in his and Mr. Biden’s fundraising trajectories, one person said, but ultimately believes he and his allies can raise the necessary funds. He is said to have told his advisors that he is doing so. discussion.
But some top donors remain hesitant. Among the concerns they have privately expressed are that the large donation will cover Mr. Trump’s legal costs, even though Mr. Trump’s advisers have publicly said the RNC has no intention of doing so. There are concerns that this may happen. As of January, Trump’s flagship super PAC had returned more than $47 million of the $60 million it received before the start of the 2024 presidential campaign to Trump’s PAC, which pays Trump’s lawyers. did.
So far, Trump has reported only a limited well of major contributors to his 2024 campaign. Meanwhile, he became more and more attentive to them.
He recently met with Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, and had a brief backstage meeting with TikTok’s billionaire investor Jeff Yass. Trump said on CNBC that he had not spoken to Yas about the company, but he later spoke out. posted on social media Regarding federal legislation that could ban the app, especially skepticism about whether it would benefit Facebook’s parent company.
On Super Tuesday, Trump’s main super PAC, Make America Great Again, rented a room at Mar-a-Lago for a major donor event. Trump stopped by to thank some of them. Prominent Florida philanthropist and Scientologist Trish Duggan has donated more than $5 million, according to people present.
The night Trump won the New Hampshire primary shouted in his victory speech. Casino magnate Steve Wynn and hedge fund manager John Paulson are both billionaires.
“You know what? Put him in the Treasury,” Trump said of Paulson that night. April’s fundraising dinner will be First reported by Bloombergwith Mr. Paulson officiating.
On the night of the South Carolina primary, Woody Johnson, the billionaire owner of the New York Jets, whom Trump gave an ambassadorship to during his term, said: stood behind Mr. Trump.
Ike Perlmutter, another billionaire and Mar-a-Lago regular, supports Right for America, another super PAC run by Trump ally Sergio Go. are doing. Trump congratulated Perlmutter on his efforts, even though Perlmutter’s presence has caused tension in the broader Trump campaign.
The funding gap in the general election was evident in advertisements released in March.
A major Trump super PAC bought about $380,000 in radio ads targeting Black voters in three states this month. The Biden campaign has announced a $30 million advertising campaign over six weeks and has a nearly 100-to-1 lead in the early stages of the race.
That ratio includes the roughly $500,000 pro-Trump super PACs spent on ads trolling Biden on the day of the State of the Union and questioning whether the president would survive until the end of his second term in 2029. Not included. This provocative commercial exemplifies what cash-strapped groups typically do: spend symbolically to generate free media coverage.
Some Republican donors have stressed that wealthy donors could write big checks, but they hope that fact comes to light given the controversy surrounding Trump. There are many cases where there is no. In 2016, many donors faced public backlash for their support.
Trump Super PAC officials have not said whether Mr. Yass has given money to the group, but a person close to the campaign said he is expected to make a seven-figure donation. It’s unclear whether it’s for super PACs or underground finance groups that don’t need to identify their donors.
After the meeting between Musk and Trump was reported, Musk said: I have written“I have not donated to either U.S. presidential candidate.” However, if Musk chooses to donate, he may decide to give the funds to an organization that cannot be traced.
Not everyone is on board yet.
“Can we just be a little sad that Nikki is not in the race?” Ken Griffin, a hedge fund executive and Republican donor, said at a conference in Florida this week that Trump’s last major Republican rival, Nikki・He said the following, referring to Mr. Haley. However, Griffin predicted that Trump would win this fall and left open the possibility that he would support Trump.
The current financial situation is a reversal from 2020.
At the time, Mr. Trump was in control of the White House and had amassed a $187 million advantage at roughly the same point, creating a much larger lead than Mr. Biden currently has. But spending decisions by the Trump team and massive donations from Democrats reversed that by the fall.
The Republican National Committee announced that last weekend was its busiest fundraising weekend since 2020, the first since Michael Whatley became chairman and Trump became co-chairman. Trump personally received a $2.7 million pledge on Fox News.
A Trump campaign spokesperson also said February was the most active month for campaign fundraising. Records show the previous highest amount of online fundraising was last August, when Trump raised $22.3 million.
Still, Democratic donors are pouring money into Mr. Biden’s coffers. The Biden campaign announced it had raised more than $10 million online in the 24 hours after the State of the Union address.
To put that amount in perspective, it was more than double Trump’s biggest day in 2023, when his mugshot was released in an indictment in Georgia and raised $4.2 million online.