Former President Trump will hold a fundraiser Saturday that is expected to raise $33 million as President Biden looks to narrow the financial advantage he built early in the general election campaign.
Hedge fund founder John Paulson held an event for Trump in Palm Beach, Fla., after the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (RNC) raised $65.6 million in March. The event had been lackluster for the first two months, but this was a marked improvement. Year.
“President Donald J. Trump has once again created a fundraising juggernaut among Republicans. It’s been less than a month since he became the presumptive Republican nominee, but the RNC and Trump campaign have become one. It is a unified operation and we are focused on winning,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement when the election results were announced in March.
These months were before Mr. Trump was officially declared the Republican nominee and before his campaign formed a joint fundraising committee with the RNC to streamline donations.
However, Mr. Biden has a significant lead over Mr. Trump in the fundraising race so far. The Biden campaign raised $53 million in February, leaving it with $155 million on hand, while the Trump campaign and joint fundraising committee raised just over $20 million in the same month, leaving $42 million in cash in the bank. The remaining.
It was compounded by Mr. Biden’s months-long lead over Mr. Trump, even though both men had been seen as highly likely to become the party’s nominee since the start of the campaign.
The Biden campaign raised even more money last week with a star-studded event hosted by late-night TV host Stephen Colbert that featured a conversation between Biden and former Presidents Obama and Clinton. Other celebrities such as Queen Latifah, Ben Platt, and Lea Michele also attended as guests.
The night ultimately raised $26 million for the Biden campaign, and now President Trump is looking to surpass that amount with his own event.
“The response to our fundraising efforts has been overwhelming, with more than $33 million raised to date. We have received tremendous support from a wide range of donors. We have reached our limit,” Paulson said in a statement announcing the event.
The event is expected to feature several wealthy guests, including billionaire TikTok investor Jeff Yass and payday lender founder Michael Hodges. The list will include billionaire John Catsimatidis, who ran unsuccessfully for New York mayor in 2013.
The Biden campaign said Hodges had reportedly said that contributing to Trump’s re-election campaign in 2019 could give payday lenders access to the Trump administration, and that Paulson and these guests criticize them. It also went after Yas, who proposed privatizing Social Security in a 2019 Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Co-chairs of the event include Las Vegas-based businessman Robert Bigelow and casino magnate Steve Wynn.
Attendees are asked to donate $250,000 each, or $814,600 each as “chair” donors, and will receive a personal copy of President Trump’s book “Our Journey Together” and a photo from the administration. It will be done.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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