Trump turns his legal woes into a campaign fundraising machine

Former President Donald Trump has long used the legal cases against him to drive money to his campaign. It now looks like that may be the most effective tool he has going.

During the first quarter of the year, developments in his various legal cases drew far more small-dollar donations to Trump than normal political developments, including his locking up the GOP nomination this spring, according to a new POLITICO analysis.

The new data, based on campaign finance filings from WinRed, the payment processor used by Trump and most other Republicans, comes as Trump faces perhaps his biggest legal challenge yet: a criminal trial in New York City on charges that he schemed to falsify records around payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.

But for his fundraising purposes, the trial may be a boon. Trump’s best fundraising days this year have been driven by his legal jeopardy, which his joint fundraising committee has worked to monetize. His appeals to supporters often reference his legal woes, and alleged persecution: Of more than 150 fundraising emails sent by his affiliated committees in the past month, nearly one-third included the phrase “witch hunt,” according to a POLITICO analysis.

The messaging appears to be particularly effective when the former president faces new legal threats: Trump had his best online fundraising day of the first quarter — and his third best overall since he launched his presidential campaign — on March 22, when New York Attorney General Tish James, a Democrat, took initial steps toward seizing his assets in the event he failed to make bond in a civil fraud case.

“What most campaigns have to do is create their own news, and get people to care about their campaign when it’s not in the news,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist. “Trump is going to benefit from wall-to-wall coverage on all the cable networks and live tweets from the courtroom about what’s going on during the trial.”

Trump is confronting a massive cash disadvantage against President Joe Biden, with even Trump advisers conceding they will have less money than the Democratic president. But Trump’s overall fundraising has picked up in recent months, with his joint fundraising committee reporting raising $65 million in the first quarter of the year.

A Trump ally and top donor closely involved with his campaign’s fundraising efforts, granted anonymity to speak freely, described recent small-dollar donations as “through the roof,” and said the campaign’s “next filing will show a significant bump in those low-dollar contributions, the volume and the unique new donors.”

Trump’s campaign believes the combination of constant coverage of Trump’s trial and their decision to release near real-time fundraising appeals throughout it could prove to be effective.

“It's a little bit of a soap opera,” the donor said. “They get results, because they message the play by play. ‘I'm in the courtroom. I'm out of the courtroom. The judge is not going to let me go to Barron's graduation. He’s leaving Trump Tower. He’s out on the FDR.’

“The more all of that is on the TV, the higher his polls go, the more money comes in, the more sympathy and support,” the donor said.

The numbers suggest that, at least for Trump’s fundraising purposes, that may be right. When James took a step toward seizing Trump’s property if he failed to make bond in the civil matter, his Save America joint fundraising committee raised $2.6 million online that day from nearly 48,000 donors, including roughly 21,500 who were giving to Trump for the first time this cycle, according to a POLITICO analysis. The dollar total was more than five times a typical day for him this quarter.

The fundraising surge was by design: The group sent several emails that day mentioning James by name.

“Trump-hating Democrat AG Letitia James is trying to get her hands on the property I worked so hard to build: THIS INCLUDES TRUMP TOWER!” read one email.

By contrast, when Trump effectively wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination after former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley dropped out of the race, he saw only a small uptick in donations compared to his quarterly average. His fundraising committee did send a handful of emails noting Haley’s exit and the end of the primary.

Biden’s campaign is not issuing fundraising appeals related to Trump’s New York trial and has no plans to, according to a Biden campaign official who was granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy. That’s part of the Biden campaign’s overall strategy to generally avoid publicly engaging with Trump’s legal dilemmas.

Trump’s trial-related fundraising is unlikely to draw him even with Biden in the money race. A Republican fundraiser in Trump’s orbit and granted anonymity to speak freely said that despite the likely grassroots donor boost the trial will give, “We’re so far behind the left on their low-dollar fundraising” that it’s unlikely to have a dramatic impact on Democrats’ small-dollar lead.

Trump’s political operation has fundraised heavily off his New York court appearances this week as he faces his first criminal trial. Since early April, he has largely sent fundraising emails to benefit a new joint fundraising committee, Trump National Committee, that raises money for both his campaign and the Republican National Committee. Notably, unlike his previous joint committee, it doesn’t raise money for the leadership PAC that has paid millions in legal bills for Trump and his allies. The new group sent roughly a dozen emails to some supporters in the first two days of the trial.

“I JUST STORMED OUT OF BIDEN’S KANGAROO COURT! What I’ve been FORCED to endure would make any patriotic American SICK,” said one email set Monday afternoon, around the time that Trump left court.

In a Tuesday email, Trump touted camouflage-style Make America Great Again hats for donors who gave at least $50 — with the twist that he might “might wear this CAMO MAGA hat while I’m in court next.”

The campaign appears to still need to work out the timing of some of those texts and emails. On Wednesday, the day each week when the trial will not take place, one of those Trump National Committee fundraising texts went out, declaring he was “on trial AS WE SPEAK” and in “the courtroom today.”

The New York trial also comes as Trump’s overall fundraising has been on an upward trajectory — an unsurprising trend as the election gets closer. His primary joint fundraising committee, Save America, averaged $596,000 per day on WinRed, the Republican platform in the first three months of 2024, up from $229,000 per day in the final three months of last year.

Part of that strength is repeat donors who give to Trump regularly. Of the roughly 592,000 donors who gave to his joint fundraising committee on WinRed in the first three months of the year, nearly half gave multiple times in the period. A quarter of donors gave at least once a month.

There are still some warning signs for Trump, even as his donations have picked up. The total number of unique donors giving to his joint fundraising committee in the first quarter was down 11 percent compared to his affiliates over the same period in the 2020 cycle.

“As with any fundraising tactic,” noted Wilson, who also runs the Center for Campaign Innovation, a nonprofit helping conservatives with digital strategy, “you start to get diminishing returns as people are tapped out.”

As the digital director for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, however, Wilson became well acquainted with the reality that Trump’s ability to generate free media far surpasses anyone else’s. And with that being the case, Trump may be able for now to ride the wave of donations fueled by trial coverage.

“The amount he raises is going to be proportionate to the amount of attention he gets in a given day,” Wilson said.