Key Facts
- The Super PAC supporting Donald Trump’s campaign announced it raised $46 million during the second half of 2023.
- That fundraising total nearly tripled the amount raised in the first six months of 2023 but trailed the more than $50 million raised by Nikki Haley’s Super PAC.
- Trump has attempted to threaten donors not to contribute to Haley’s campaign, but thus far, it appears to have backfired.
Donald Trump has won the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. He appears to be gaining traction in political betting sites for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential campaign.
While he’s winning at the ballot box, however, things don’t appear to be going quite as well in an area of the campaign that is near and dear to the former president’s heart—the bottom line, financially.
| Candidate | Party | BetOnline | Bovada | Bookmaker |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Donald Trump | Republican | -175 | -165 | -184 |
| Kamala Harris | Democrat | +153 | +145 | +163 |
Trump Needs Cash
As a former president and celebrity personality, Trump doesn’t need to rely on paid ads to get the word out. His coverage by the media dwarfs those of the other Republican candidates he’s run against for the nomination. However, Trump’s need for fundraising money is still much higher than that of Nikki Haley or of likely Democratic nominee, President Joe Biden.
That’s because Trump is using a portion of his campaign contributions to help pay the legal fees resulting from the large number of simultaneous court cases he’s facing around the country.
Facing multiple intensifying investigations, Donald Trump has quietly begun diverting more of the money he is raising away from his 2024 presidential campaign and into a political action committee that he has used to pay his personal legal fees. https://t.co/MPrQVuWhK5
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 26, 2023
He faces a lawsuit in New York and criminal indictments in Georgia, New York, and Washington. There are federal and state cases against him, and the army of lawyers working on his behalf is racking up substantial fees.
In July of last year, Trump’s leadership PAC announced that it had spent more than $40 million on the former president’s legal fees. Later in the year, one organization requested a $60 million refund for money spent on legal fees over the last three years.
Trump earmarks a portion of fundraising money he receives to his Super PAC, presumably so it can be used to support his legal fees, instead of on the actual campaign. He increased that amount in 2023, from one cent out of every dollar raised going to the Super PAC to 10 cents out of every dollar going there.
| Candidate | Bovada | BetOnline |
|---|---|---|
| Donald Trump | -1200 | -5000 |
| Nikki Haley | +1200 | |
| Ron DeSantis | +8000 | |
| Tucker Carlson | +12,500 | |
| Ivanka Trump | +20,000 | |
| Any Other Candidate | +1200 |
Primary Race
Unlike Biden, who has been the presumptive Democratic nominee as the incumbent, Trump has had to fight off an army of Republican challengers.
The field has narrowed, with only Nikki Haley remaining in the field opposing Trump, but it has still resulted in additional campaign expenses that Biden has not had to face.
According to CNN, the Republican campaigns spent $77 million in New Hampshire alone, a 54% increase over the amount spent by the Democrats in the 2020 primary race. Trump and the organizations supporting him spent $10 million on attack ads against Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has since left the race, and $6 million attacking Haley in New Hampshire.
How Much Has He Raised?
Unlike Biden and Haley, the Trump campaign has not yet released its fundraising numbers for the fourth quarter of 2023, nor has it announced how much cash it had on hand to start the 2024 election year.
However, the largest Super PAC supporting Trump released financial information last week. Make America Great Again Inc. announced that it had raised $46 million in the last half of 2023, nearly tripling the $17 million it raised in the first half of the year. The PAC also announced that it has $23 million in cash on hand to start the year.
Haley’s Super PAC responded almost immediately, announcing that it raised more than $50 million, although it may not be in as good a position when it comes to available cash, since the campaign has spent heavily to help improve Haley’s national profile on the campaign trail.
Continuing Battle for Money
With Trump’s early success in the caucuses and primaries seeming to indicate that he’s going to wrap up the Republican nomination, his campaign has been trying to pressure donors into abandoning support for Haley’s challenge.
Trump tells Haley donors to stay away, her campaign touts recent fundraising numbershttps://t.co/8ZAeNOdgVC
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 26, 2024
Trump posted an explicit threat to donors on the Truth Social network, saying, “When I ran for Office and won, I noticed that the losing Candidate’s ‘Donors’ would immediately come to me, and want to ‘help out.’ This is standard in Politics, but no longer with me.”
In the same post, he spelled out the consequences of supporting Haley, whom he has nicknamed “Birdbrain.”
“Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp,” Trump posted. “We don’t want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!”
Donors did not respond the way Trump hoped, donating a reported $1 million to Haley in the days since those comments were posted.
As is often the case in politics, the best way to determine how a race is going is the old adage: “Follow the money.”
