Republican donor enthusiasm is reaching new levels more than a year before the presidential election, sparking wild predictions that President Trump and the Republican National Committee’s joint fundraising committee will raise more than Trump and Hillary Clinton collected in the 2016 election.
GOP fundraisers said the president could rake in $2 billion to $2.5 billion, a record amount that is double what Clinton and former President Barack Obama took in for their most recent campaigns.
It would also be four times the $600 million Trump raised in 2016.
“With that kind of money, we’ll be hard to beat,” said a Trump insider, noting that Clinton out-raised Trump in 2016 2-to-1 and still lost.
Trump recently shocked the political and fundraising establishment when he raised more than $1 million an hour during the first day of his official reelection campaign. Not only did he host a huge rally in Orlando, Florida, but his campaign team and children, including Eric and Lara Trump, and Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle made calls to 200 top donors.
Teamed with the RNC, Trump raised $24.8 million on June 18. By comparison, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, this week said he raised $24.8 million over three months, and former Vice President Joe Biden raised $6.3 million on the day he declared, the most one-day take of all the Democrats in the race.
And their latest numbers showed the joint fundraising operation raked in $105 million in the second quarter, the second straight quarter of raising $100 million or more.
Fundraisers told the Secrets that while swarms of small-dollar donations are rolling in, big donors are also eager to contribute, citing Trump’s successes in packing courts with conservative judges, cutting taxes, eliminating costly regulations, and boosting the economy.
“I raised six figures from a businessman who got a tax refund of seven figures. It’s the same dynamic for middle-income Americans — they’re more likely to support us with $5, $20, or $100 because they see the difference in their own paycheck and want to keep it going,” one fundraiser said.
Trump friend and fundraiser Bill White, who splits his time between New York City and Atlanta, said the campaign makes efforts to engage with donors of all types and they appreciate it.
“This is fun because people like to give to him, they like going to his rallies, and they like cheering him on,” said White, who, with his husband Bryan Eure, is hosting a $5 million fundraiser for the president at his Atlanta-area home.
What’s more, he said, fundraisers are finding that others want to join their team. He described one meeting with 300 Trump surrogates and national finance chairmen in which plans were set for each to attract five more, and those 1,500 will raise $100,000 each, or $150 million.
“Donald Trump can raise that type of money. People love the economy, they love what he’s done with NATO and getting other nations to pay their share, they love that he’s cut the African American unemployment numbers. They want to say thank you for saving our country,” he said.
The amounts will also be high as a result of the joint fundraising by Trump Make America Great Again Committee, Donald J. Trump for President Inc., and the Republican National Committee.
Such joint fundraising committees can raise top-dollar amounts from wealthy donors and spend it as they see fit, either in the primary or general election.
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