Growing Money Troubles for Trump Could Weigh on Wider GOP Election Efforts

With new fundraising filings disclosing that President Trump is far behind President Biden in the money race in 2024, a scenario where Mr. Trump doesn’t have enough money to keep up with his opponents is coming into focus.February fundraising filings with the Federal Election Commission disclosed that Mr. Trump’s campaign holdings fell to about $30 million dollars last month, down from about $33 million in January.At the same time, Mr. Biden’s campaign reported ending with $56 million in cash at the end of the month, up from $46 million in January.Mr. Trump’s financial disadvantage is largely a product of raising less money than Mr. Biden’s campaign, with Mr. Biden’s campaign raising about $15 million while Mr. Trump’s raised about $8.8 million.At the same time, Mr. Trump’s campaign also burned through more money, with Mr. Trump’s campaign spending about $11 million while Mr. Biden’s spent only about $6 million.While much of Mr. Trump’s campaign spending was on advertising — it spent about $5 million in ads for Republican primaries — organizations raising money for Mr. Trump, like his leadership PAC, Save America, also dolled out for legal expenses.The Save America PAC spent some $3 million on legal expenses in February, adding to around $47 million that the organization spent on legal fees last year.Between Mr. Trump’s political organization’s high spend rate and lackluster fundraising at the Republican National Committee, the GOP could be entering the election at a substantial financial disadvantage.The chief data scientist at Decision Desk HQ, Liberty Vittert, tells the Sun that she could see Mr. Trump having to fall back on his own wealth to campaign, depending on how future campaign fundraising efforts fair.“There is a scenario where he will have to self-fund like he did in 2016 to keep up with fundraising, especially if he has to keep spending so much of it on legal bills,” Ms. Vittert tells the Sun. “But the one thing that Trump is miles ahead of Biden [in] is earned media so he has that going for him in a big way.”So far, Republican committees have been trailing their Democratic counterparts in fundraising for the 2024 election. The Democratic National Committee ended 2023 with around $21 million in cash, while the Republican National Committee ended the year with just more than $8 million.Likewise, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, responsible for supporting House candidates, ended the year with around $53 million in cash. Its Republican counterpart only had around $42.5 million.While it’s not unusual for the incumbent’s party to raise more than the challenger’s party — Mr. Trump out-fundraised Mr. Biden in 2020 — a coming shakeup at the RNC could spell trouble for down-ballot Republicans hoping to get support from the national party.Mr. Trump is hoping to replace RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel with his daughter-in-law, Laura Trump. In a conversation with Newsmax, Ms. Trump said that if she wins the RNC chair election, she will prioritize Mr. Trump’s election over everything else.“Every single penny will go to the No. 1 and the only job of the RNC — that is electing Donald J. Trump as President of the United States,” Ms. Trump said.

Growing Money Troubles for Trump Could Weigh on Wider GOP Election Efforts

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