Donald Trump has boasted about his “record-breaking” fundraising success as the first former or current president in U.S. history to be convicted at trial.
The former president’s campaign announced Friday morning that it had raised $34.8 million between 6pm ET and midnight Thursday, shortly after Trump was found guilty of all 34 felony counts in his criminal trial in New York City.
Then on Friday evening, the Trump campaign released an update, announcing that about $53 million had been raised through its online digital fundraising platform in the 24 hours following the verdict.
The campaign touted the fundraiser as “nearly double the largest day ever recorded by the Trump campaign on the WinRed platform” and stressed that the conviction “awakened the MAGA movement like never before.”
How a Trump conviction could affect his rematch with Biden in 2024
Donald Trump arrives at Trump Tower on Thursday, May 30, 2024, after being convicted of 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records. (Felipe Ramares for Fox News Digital)
The surge in donations comes as Trump seeks to close the fundraising gap with President Biden ahead of a rematch in the 2024 election.
“Just minutes after the bogus court verdict was announced, our digital fundraising system was inundated with support,” Trump campaign senior advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement Friday morning.
Here’s what Trump said to Fox News Digital after the verdict:
They said, “Not only is the amount historic, [Thursday’s] The donor was a brand new donor to the WinRed platform.”
Pointing to the fall election, LaCivita and Wiles reiterated that “President Trump is fighting to save our country, and November 5th is the day the American people will give their real verdict.”
Former President Donald Trump speaks at Trump Tower in New York, Friday, May 31, 2024. The day after a New York jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felony charges, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee spoke out about the conviction and appeared to shed new light on his campaign. (AP Photo/Julia Nickinson)
Minutes after the verdict was read in the first trial of a former and current president in U.S. history, Trump’s team made a fundraising appeal to his supporters.
“My friends, is this the end of America?” Trump asked in an email. “I have just been convicted in a rigged political witch hunt.”
“We’re just days away from our end-of-month fundraising deadline!” Trump wrote in the email, which also included a photo of the former president calling Trump a “political prisoner.”
WinRed, a Republican online fundraising platform used by the Trump campaign and others, was temporarily shut down within an hour of the ruling.
Former President Trump appeared in hush money trial in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on May 30, 2024. (Stephen Hirsch Pool/Getty Images)
Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, advised donors who encountered the WinRed error message to either sign up for Trump’s text message list or log back into the site and try again.
“If you’re one of the millions of American patriots who want to donate to Donald Trump’s campaign and receive an error message from @WINRED… don’t give up! Log back in and try again! Or text TRUMP to 88022,” LaCivita tweeted.
Biden team quickly responds to guilty verdict in Trump trial
Trump’s campaign website also directed donors to Anedot, another fundraising platform used by various Republican campaigns.
The Trump campaign also warned lower-ranking Republican candidate campaigns not to try to use the former president’s conviction to raise money directly, in order to prevent “diversion” of donations intended for Trump’s coffers.
Meanwhile, the former president’s top pollsters released a memo on the eve of the verdict arguing that a guilty verdict would have no effect on the election.
President Trump is scheduled to hold three big fundraisers in California next weekend.
President Biden speaks at a campaign rally at Girard College in Philadelphia on May 29, 2024. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris used the rally to launch a national campaign to garner support from Black voters. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Biden’s reelection campaign also issued a fundraising appeal shortly after the verdict.
“Despite the jury’s guilty verdict today against Donald Trump, there is only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: the ballot box,” the Biden campaign wrote in a fundraising message to supporters Thursday night.
“If you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to make your first donation to Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, we’re here to tell you that today is the day,” he said.
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Trump has been trying to close the fundraising gap with Biden, and in April, his campaign and the Republican National Committee outraised Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee for the first time.
Trump is stepping up his fundraising efforts, The Biden campaign still held a cash advantage of $84 million to $49 million as of the end of April.
Get the latest 2024 campaign updates, exclusive interviews and more on Fox News Digital’s Election Hub.
