Trump Raised About $66 Million in March, Cutting Into Biden’s Lead

Hadriana Lowenkron
·3 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee jointly raised $65.6 million in March and ended the month with $93.1 million in cash on hand, representing a massive boost to the party’s fundraising totals as the former president became the presumptive GOP nominee.

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“President Donald J. Trump has again created a fundraising juggernaut among Republicans. While he has been the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party for less than a month, the RNC and Trump campaign are one unified operation and focused on victory,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement Wednesday.

The March figures far out-pace the combined $21.6 million Trump’s campaign the RNC raised in February. The haul cuts into a large lead President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee have amassed, ending February with $155 million in the bank. Biden has yet to report his March fundraising totals, which are due later this month.

Trump, when he became the party’s presumptive nominee in March, was able to join forces with the RNC to accept much larger checks from Republican donors. While previously donors could give his campaign a maximum donation of $6,600, they can now each donate $814,600 which is split among his campaign, the RNC and GOP state parties.

Whatley and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump took over leadership of the RNC in March after former chair Ronna McDaniel stepped down amid Trump allies’ displeasure with the group’s fundraising under her tenure.

Fundraising Swing

The broader Trump political fundraising operation has shown signs of financial headwinds. Political action committees allied with Trump have spent more than $54 million on legal fees connected to his four criminal indictments and other civil cases. And his small-dollar fundraising operation has shown signs of slowing down.

Trump is set to get another large cash infusion later this week when hedge fund manager John Paulson will host a fundraiser for Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, that is anticipated to raise more than $30 million.

Read more: John Paulson’s Palm Beach Donor Event Shows Trump Strategy Shift

The announcement comes as George Conway, a Republican lawyer, and Melissa Moss, a DC consultant and her husband Jonathan Silver are among co-hosts for a fundraiser for Biden on April 24 in Washington, demonstrating the cracks in the GOP donor class.

The event, first reported by Axios and confirmed by Conway to Bloomberg News, follows a fundraising swing that has taken the president to Texas and most recently New York City, where he was joined by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and raised $25 million. Conway, who was previously married to former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway and gained fame over his anti-Trump writing, donated the maximum allotted $929,600 to Biden.

--With assistance from Bill Allison.

(Adds pragraph five about new RNC leadership. A previous version was corrected to remove a reference to Republican strategist Matt Gorman)

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