Trump outraises Biden again and erodes president’s financial edge

Originally Published: 20 JUN 24 23:18 ET

Updated: 21 JUN 24 08:34 ET

By Fredreka Schouten, David Wright and Alex Leeds Matthews, CNN

(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump and his political operation outraised President Joe Biden for the second month in a row in May, as a flood of donations after Trump’s criminal conviction quickly eroded the financial advantage Biden held for much of the campaign cycle.

Biden and the Democrats raised $85 million in May, his campaign said in a statement, a figure that is well short of the staggering $141 million that Trump and his political operation said it collected last month, fueled by tens of millions of dollars collected in the immediate aftermath of his May 30 conviction in a New York criminal case for falsifying business records.

Biden’s campaign said Thursday that his committees entered June with a massive $212 million cash stockpile. The Trump campaign has not yet disclosed cash-on-hand figures for all of its committees.

Campaigns don’t have to do so until next month, but Federal Election Commission filings late Thursday offered a partial picture, showing Trump’s main committee with more than $116.5 million in cash reserves at May 31 while Biden’s main campaign account held $91.6 million — a stark reversal of fortune from just a month earlier, when Biden had a $35 million cash edge.

The Biden team said its war chest — built up over the course of the campaign — has helped establish a substantial campaign infrastructure and touted its hiring, together with the Democratic Party, of more than 1,000 staffers across battleground states.

“Our strong and consistent fundraising program grew by millions of people in May, a clear sign of strong and growing enthusiasm for the President and Vice President every single month,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. “The money we continue to raise matters, and it’s helping the campaign build out an operation that invests in reaching and winning the voters who will decide this election.”

The total announced Thursday by the Biden team doesn’t include a recent spate of fundraising by the president. Over the weekend, he collected more than $30 million – a Democratic record – at a star-studded event featuring former President Barack Obama and Hollywood luminaries such as George Clooney and Julia Roberts.

And his campaign on Thursday touted nearly $20 million in support of his reelection from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The billionaire, who faced off against Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, gave the maximum donation of $929,600 to the Biden Victory Fund, the campaign’s joint fundraising entity with Democratic Party committees, a campaign official said. Bloomberg, also donated $19 million to the FF PAC, the main super PAC working to promote Biden’s reelection bid, according to the entity’s filing Thursday with federal regulators.

Bloomberg’s donation was first reported by The Washington Post.

Trump’s political ambitions, meanwhile, received a huge boost in May with a $50 million cash infusion to a super PAC backing his campaign from Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and heir to a banking fortune who has emerged as one of the single largest donors in this year’s presidential election.

The donation from Mellon to the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC last month accounted for the lion’s share of the $68.8 million that the group reported raising in May, new filings show. The donation, recorded a day after Trump’s conviction in New York, is helping to fuel the super PAC’s planned $100 million advertising blitz over the summer.

In all, Mellon has donated $100 million to super PACs associated with presidential candidates – making him one of the biggest financial figures of the 2024 campaign. Before last month, the Wyoming-based investor had donated $25 million apiece to the pro-Trump super PAC and to one supporting the long-shot independent campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Kennedy-aligned super PAC, American Values 2024, did not report any further donations from Mellon in its filings covering financial activity in May. But Democrats have highlighted Mellon’s financial support of both men as part of an effort to cast Kennedy, the scion of a storied Democratic family, as a spoiler candidate backed by the GOP.

Thursday’s filings also showed that legal expenses continued to drain Trump’s campaign coffers, as his criminal trial in New York drew to a close.

More than $3.6 million – or 85% – of all the money spent by his Save America leadership PAC last month went toward legal expenses. Save America has served as the main campaign vehicle for paying those bills. The law firm of Trump’s lead attorney in the criminal trial, Todd Blanche, received about half of that, $1.8 million. The PAC also entered June with a total of $861,000 in unpaid legal bills.

Since Trump left office, Save America has spent more than $83 million on legal bills.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.

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