Trump and allied groups raise $65.6 million in March
By David Wright, CNN
(CNN) — The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee announced raising a combined $65.6 million in March and entered April with $93.1 million in cash on hand, the groups said on Wednesday.
The announced totals represent an improved financial position for Trump and the RNC compared to last month, when Trump and his main fundraising committees announced a cash on hand total of about $41.9 million, while the RNC held about $11.3 million more. The total exceeds the $63 million that the Trump political operation reported raising with the party in March 2020, the same period in the last presidential campaign – and the month that Covid-19 began to sweep across the country, disrupting normal life.
Still, Trump and the RNC face a significant gap to close with the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Biden and the Democrats reported cash on hand totals of more than $155 million at the end of February, and have not yet announced their totals for March. Full details on the fundraising and spending activities by Trump’s network, the RNC, and other federal candidates and committees will be released later this month, when FEC reports are due.
“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,” said RNC Chairman Michael Whatley in a statement accompanying the announcement. “We’re raising funds and making strategic investments to get out the vote and protect the ballot. We are going to win BIG in just 31 weeks.”
While Trump’s network and Republicans hauled in tens of millions in March, the former president’s ongoing legal troubles have presented a strain on his resources, contributing to the Biden team’s financial edge.
Save America, the leadership PAC that Trump has used as the main vehicle for paying his mounting legal bills, and which receives a portion of campaign contributions, has spent more than $72.5 million on legal expenses since January 1, 2021, federal election records show.
And in February alone, Save America plowed nearly $5.6 million into legal costs, largely related to Trump and his allies, surpassing the money the committee took in last month. And his expenses are expected to grow as trial dates approach.
Meanwhile, a new joint fundraising agreement that Trump inked last month with the RNC and state parties first sends donors’ money to his campaign committee and then to the leadership PAC before the national party gets its share, detailed by an invite to an upcoming fundraiser. The fundraising arrangement increases the odds of donors’ money continuing to help underwrite Trump’s mounting legal expenses.
Trump has courted big donors at his Mar-a-Lago club and is slated to headline his campaign’s first major fundraiser Saturday in Palm Beach, Florida, where attendees will pay as much as $814,600 per person. The event benefits the Trump 47 Committee, the new joint fundraising operation Trump has established with the RNC and dozens of state party committees.
The Trump campaign has said it hopes to raise $33 million at Saturday’s dinner and exceed the more than $26 million that President Joe Biden raised last week at a single star-studded event in New York that featured former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
This story has been updated with additional background information.
CNN’s Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
