Former President Trump’s campaign has largely made up for a significant funding gap relative to President Biden’s reelection campaign, thanks to a surge in donations over the past two months during and immediately after Trump’s criminal trial in New York City.
According to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) report filed late Thursday, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) Combined With $171 million in funding, the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Combined $157 million on hand.
A more detailed accounting of the campaign’s spending won’t be available until the Joint Fundraising Committee files its report with the FEC next month. While the Biden campaign has touted the money it is spending on infrastructure in battleground states, it has questioned how much Trump is spending on legal fees.
But Trump’s campaign handily outfunded Biden’s campaign in April and May, helping it close a large cash gap as the former president was largely confined to a Manhattan courtroom.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $76 million in April, while the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised $51 million that same month, and the gap widened in May, when the Trump campaign raised $141 million to Biden’s $85 million.
The Trump campaign said it had raised $53 million through online donations within 24 hours after a jury found the former president guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up alleged affairs during the 2016 campaign.
Additionally, federal filings show that billionaire Timothy Mellon donated $50 million to a pro-Trump super PAC the day after Trump’s conviction. Mellon had previously donated millions to a super PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The influx of money could allow Trump to invest in voter outreach in key battleground states, and a major super PAC supporting Trump’s candidacy has already announced plans to spend $100 million on paid media through Labor Day, with a particular focus on four key battleground states.
The Biden campaign has raised more money than any Democratic presidential candidate in history at this point in the election cycle and has a financial advantage over Trump since the 2024 race began.
The group’s fundraising figures announced Thursday don’t include $30 million raised at a Hollywood fundraiser last weekend that featured former President Barack Obama, Jimmy Kimmel, George Clooney and Julia Roberts, or the roughly $20 million donated by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to a pro-Biden group.
The Biden campaign has amassed huge amounts of cash, allowing it to fund a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, deploy personnel in key battleground states and specifically target voters in key demographics.
“The funds we continue to raise are critical and help the campaign build an operation invested in reaching and winning the voters who will decide this election – in contrast to Trump’s PR blitzes and photo ops that are pretending to be a campaign,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. “From person-to-person organizing to a historic paid media campaign, we are working to get the votes we need to win the election in November.”
