Donald Trump’s donations surge by $400mn to tighten money race with Joe Biden

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Fundraising groups aligned with Donald Trump raised more than $400mn for his presidential election campaign between April and June — a record second-quarter haul that almost matches the sums raised during his entire 2016 campaign, according to a Financial Times analysis of federal filings.

The figure, which is likely to grow as more political action committees report this weekend, is three times the first-quarter total and roughly double their contributions from the same period of the 2020 election.

The massive windfall, which puts the Republican on track to outpace his Democratic rival President Joe Biden, came from small donors furious at Trump’s criminal conviction in New York and billionaires flocking to his campaign.

More than 450,000 donations came in to pro-Trump groups on May 31, the day after he became the first former president to be found a felon. That smashed the previous record of about 85,000 contributions in a day after his mugshot was taken in Georgia.

The groups that have reported show that their legal costs have escalated to more than $84mn since the start of the campaign. They have used some of the funds they raised to help Trump fight the New York “hush money” case and special counsel Jack Smith’s charges that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election and improperly withheld classified documents.

Biden had been dominating the money race, as Trump used donors’ money to see off rivals in the Republican primary and pay his lawyers. By the end of March, Biden-supporting groups had raised a combined $413mn in contributions and pro-Trump groups had received about $326mn in contributions.

Further filings for June are expected in the coming days, which are likely to provide a fuller picture of the fundraising fight between the campaigns.

Those Biden-aligned committees that filed second-quarter reports on Monday reported raising $270mn in the period, roughly matching his supporters’ total contributions for the same stage of the 2020 race.

More groups, including the president’s official campaign and one of the main Biden super Pacs, are due report by this weekend, which will raise that total, but Democrats fear the president’s fundraising could struggle following his weak performance in a debate with Trump on June 27.

Trump’s tribulations, including his criminal trials and Saturday’s attempt on his life, have motivated billionaires from Silicon Valley to Wall Street to donate.

Banking scion Tim Mellon has been Trump’s biggest disclosed donor, giving $75mn to a pro-Trump super Pac, including $50mn the day after the former president’s conviction for falsifying business records to cover up an affair with a porn actor ahead of the 2016 election. Ike Perlmutter, former chair of Marvel Entertainment, gave $10mn following the verdict.

That momentum has continued into the third quarter. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, founders of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and two of the most prominent figures in Silicon Valley, are among those now planning to donate to the Trump campaign, according to one person with direct knowledge of their plans. 

The pair are “more Democrats [than Republicans] at heart but are not making headway with the current government” and see more promise in Trump’s vision for technology in America, this person said.

After the former president escaped death on Saturday, Elon Musk and Bill Ackman publicly endorsed him, potentially heralding the prospect of further outsized donations.

Musk responded to a Wall Street Journal report that he planned on giving Trump $45mn a month for the rest of the campaign, by posting a meme on X with the words “FAKE GNUS”. But he then wrote “Yeah” in response to a post that said: “Elon Musk went from being an Obama voter to pledging $180 million to elect DJT. The woke left really f*cked up. Badly.”