(Headline USA) Donald Trump’s campaign out-raised President Joe Biden by more than $60 million last month, according to federal filings that detailed the Republican fundraising explosion sparked by Trump’s felony convictions, in what was widely regarded as a brazen miscarriage of justice weaponized by George Soros-backed Democrats for the express purpose of meddling in the election.
Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee together raised $85 million in May and reported $212 million in the bank at the end of the month.
That does not include roughly $40 million raised by Biden and his top surrogates in recent days during a Hollywood fundraiser with celebrities like George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jimmy Kimmel, Jack Black and Barbra Streisand—or a separate $20 million donation from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to pro-Biden groups.
Bloomberg, one of the world’s wealthiest men and the top overall donor in past campaign cycles, sent $19 million to the pro-Biden group Future Forward in addition to sending the legal maximum of $929,600 to the Biden Victory Fund, according to a person familiar with the transfers.
Bloomberg—whom Biden bestowed last month with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award—also formally endorsed Biden on Thursday. “I stood with Joe Biden in 2020, and I am proud to do so again,” he said in a statement.
Still, Trump’s fundraising for, for one month at least, seemed to dwarf Biden’s, according to the filings made public Thursday.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said it raised a jaw-dropping $141 million in May, including tens of millions donated immediately after Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in the New York porn-star case led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Judge Juan Merchan.
At the same time, reclusive billionaire Timothy Mellon—who had previously supported the campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—donated a stunning $50 million to a pro-Trump super PAC the day after Trump’s guilty verdict, according to the filings. Super-PAC donations are not associated with the actual campaign, and candidates are prohibited from coordinating with them, even though they advocate on behalf of the candidate in question.
Overall, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee reported more than $170 million in the bank at the end of May.
Biden’s campaign attempted, without evidence, to claim that Trump was siphoning money and resources from down-ballot candidates and devoting RNC resources to cover his legal fees, even as it used government resources to wage its partisan lawfare attacks against him..
“Our strong and consistent fundraising program grew by millions of people in May, a clear sign of strong and growing enthusiasm for the president and vice president every single month,” claimed strong Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
“The money we continue to raise matters, and it’s helping the campaign build out an operation that invests in reaching and winning the voters who will decide this election––a stark contrast to Trump’s PR stunts and photo-ops that he’s pretending is a campaign.”
The accusation by Rodriguez, the granddaughter of illegal immigration activist Cesar Chavez, may strike some as bizarre considering Biden’s Hollywood fundraiser—for which he cut short a meeting with European world leaders—was the ultimate photo-op stunt.
One of the Left’s go-to tactics in the current campaign, ripped from the playbook of Saul Alinsky, has been to accuse their opponents of the very things they are doing.
COMMUNISTS HAVE ALWAYS LABELED OPPONENTS FASCISTS, NAZIS, ANTI-SEMITIC “Accuse your opponent of what you are doing to create confusion and inoculate yourself from guilt in the eyes of the voter.”
~Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals, 1972“In 1943 the following directive was… pic.twitter.com/JjNTAi3xRi
— Recall Katie Hobbs (@AmericanHubener) December 3, 2023
The numbers detailed in the campaigns’ latest Federal Election Commission filings suggest Democrats may still maintain a cash advantage in the 2024 presidential contest given the vast advantage they have in dark-money billionaire donors, like Bloomberg and Soros, as well as corporate special interests and—although technically illegal—money from foreign nationals that comes via untraceable aggregation sites like ActBlue.
Almost four months before Election Day, though, Republicans are closing the gap—if it isn’t closed already.
The new fundraising figures underscore the extent to which the rules of presidential politics are being rewritten in the era of leftist lawfare, and by Trump’s unique ability to withstand the slings and arrows—indeed, to thrive off them.
At almost any other time in U.S. history, a presidential candidate would have been forced to leave an election after being convicted of dozens of felonies. But in 2024, Trump’s guilty verdict has instead fueled a massive fundraising surge that puts his team in a position to ramp up advertising and swing-state infrastructure, just as voters begin paying closer attention to the election.
Backed by Mellon’s massive donation, the pro-Trump super PAC known as MAGA Inc. on Thursday reserved $3.5 million in television advertising set to begin July 3 across Georgia and Pennsylvania, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. Overall, the group reported a $68.8 million haul for May, ending the month with $93.7 million in the bank.
Kennedy, whom Mellon has also supported, raised $2.6 million last month and finished May with $6.4 million in the bank. The vast majority of his fundraising total came from running mate Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley lawyer. The Kennedy campaign spent more than it raised for the month.
Despite gaining early buzz and momentum with his appearances on non-traditional, anti-establishment media—such as Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand—the political scion has appeared to be pushed significantly leftward by Shanahan’s influence, pivoting back to some of his long-held radical policies on issues like abortion and reparations to court Democrat voters, which may work to Trump’s advantage.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
