Former President Trump has run a solid campaign. But they’re suffering a setback.
Because Donald Trump has fallen far behind Kamala Harris in this key election metric.
In a significant financial push ahead of the 2024 presidential election, former President Donald Trump’s campaign has raised more than $160 million in September alone. This substantial fundraising effort is the result of a coordinated drive involving Trump’s official campaign, joint fundraising committees, and the Republican National Committee, according to Politico.
Impressively, about 96% of these contributions came from donors giving less than $200, with the average donation around $60. As the campaign prepares for the final stretch before the November election, this has pushed Trump’s total funds to $283 million.
“President Trump continues to inspire millions of everyday Americans to join his America First movement and help fuel the campaign with their hard-earned money. In September, nearly 2.5 million donations under $200 were made,” said Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, in a statement reported by Politico.
Good Fundraising Followed By Bad News
The September fundraising figure slightly surpasses the campaign’s August total of $130 million, which was reported on September 4. However, it still lags behind the $140 million raised in July. In contrast, Trump’s competitor, Vice President Kamala Harris, collected a much larger sum of $361 million in August, according to Politico.
Additionally, Republican Voters Against Trump, a coalition of conservatives opposed to Trump’s candidacy, raised more than $35 million to back Harris in the upcoming election. Led by conservative strategist Sarah Longwell and featuring prominent figures like Bill Kristol and Tim Miller, the group launched an $11 million advertising campaign targeting battleground states such as Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, with an overall goal of raising $50 million.
Despite the strong September performance, Trump’s current fundraising pace falls short of his 2020 efforts. During the same period in the previous election cycle, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee raised $247.8 million, as reported by Politico. This comparison suggests that while Trump continues to draw substantial support, his 2024 fundraising efforts have not yet reached the same scale as in 2020.
The Trump-Vance campaign and authorized committees once again exceeded internal benchmarks and demonstrated huge support from grassroots donations.
The campaign ended September with over $160 million raised and 96 percent of the donations being under $200. This resulted in an… pic.twitter.com/LKwgAStxRC
— Hollywood Resistance (@ResistItAllTX) October 2, 2024
Fundraising can be a major indicator of enthusiasm surrounding a candidate and their ticket. For Donald Trump to have no political experience before 2016, to come on to the scene with fury, and raise hundreds of millions of dollars every cycle is truly impressive and unprecedented. But he is falling behind Kamala Harris’s fundraising numbers.
The Harris campaign has not rounded out their September fundraising numbers just yet, but we do know that the Harris campaign boasted of raising at least $55 million at just a handful of California fundraisers during the last weekend of September. If that’s any indication, she probably raised far more than Donald Trump’s $160 million last month. We will know for sure soon.
The Biden and now Harris campaign has raised around $678 million between January 2023 and August of 2024. That far outpaces the $309 million Donald Trump has been able to pull in during the same time frame, all according to the Federal Election Commission reporting.
At the end of August, the Kamala Harris campaign had nearly twice as much liquid cash on hand compared to Donald Trump, with $235 million compared to Donald Trump’s $135 million. Within the first 24 hours of her candidacy, Harris raised an eye-watering $81 million.
That all being said, fundraising is not everything. Donald Trump has had really good fundraising every cycle, but he hasn’t had the best fundraising. Hillary Clinton’s campaign raised around $1.2 billion according to the Federal Election Commission in 2016.
Donald Trump, who resoundingly won that cylce in a huge upset, raised half as much money as Hillary Clinton did that cycle by bringing in around $646 million, according to FEC reporting. Meaning, Hillary Clinton raised about twice as much money as Trump was able to, and yet she lost.
That looks very similar to what we’re seeing with the Harris-Trump race now in 2024. She is clearly beating Donald Trump with fundraising, no doubt, but that’s not everything. Plenty of pollsters believe that Donald Trump is the one in the driver’s seat this cycle since Harris is going to have a hard time convincing key voters in the Rust Belt that will be necessary to win.
Donald Trump has never had all the billionaire elites in his pocket. Even his supporters who are quite wealthy like Elon Musk are not literally bankrolling his campaign quite like Kamala Harris enjoys. Kamala Harris boasts about the support from elites throughout much of the Forbes Fortune 500 richer-than-God cabal.
Money can’t replace voter support, though. Harris might be worried about experiencing the same trouble Hillary Clinton did just eight years ago.
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
