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Trump Outperforms Biden Again, Eroding President’s Financial Advantage – Boston News, Weather, Sports
(CNN) – Former President Donald Trump and its political operation surpassed President Joe Biden for the second consecutive month in May, when a flood of donations following Trump’s criminal conviction quickly eroded the financial advantage Biden had maintained for much of the campaign cycle.
Biden and Democrats raised $85 million in May, his campaign said in a statement, a figure that falls well short of the staggering $141 million that Trump and his political operation said they raised last month, fueled by tens of millions of dollars raised in the immediate aftermath of your May 30 sentencing in a criminal case in New York for falsifying business records.
The Biden campaign said Thursday that its committees entered June with a massive cash hoard of $212 million. The Trump campaign has not yet released figures for money available to all of its committees.
Campaigns don’t have to do that until next month, but Federal Election Commission filings Thursday night offered a partial picture, showing Trump’s main committee with more than $116.5 million in cash reserves as of 31 May, while Biden’s main campaign account held $91.6 million – a whopping amount. reversal of fortunes from just a month earlier, when Biden had a cash cushion of $35 million.
Biden’s team said its war chest – built up over the course of the campaign – helped establish a substantial campaign infrastructure and touted the hiring, along with the Democratic Party, of more than 1,000 staffers in swing states.
“Our strong and consistent fundraising program grew by millions in May, a clear sign of strong and growing enthusiasm from the President and Vice President each month,” said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, in a statement. “The money we continue to raise is important and is helping the campaign build an operation that is invested in reaching and winning over the voters who will decide this election.”
The total announced Thursday by Biden’s team does not include a recent fundraising spree by the president. Over the weekend, he raised more than $30 million — a Democratic record — at a star-studded event that featured former President Barack Obama and Hollywood luminaries like George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
And his campaign on Thursday raised nearly $20 million in support of his re-election of the former New York mayor. Michael Bloomberg. The billionaire, who faced Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary, made the maximum donation of $929,600 to the Biden Victory Fund, the campaign’s joint fundraising entity with Democratic Party committees, a campaign official said. Bloomberg also donated $19 million to FF PAC, the main super PAC working to promote Biden’s re-election bid, according to the entity’s filing Thursday with federal regulators.
Bloomberg Donation was first reported by the Washington Post.
Trump’s political ambitions, meanwhile, received a huge boost in May with a $50 million cash infusion into a super PAC supporting his campaign from Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and heir to a banking fortune that has emerged as one of the biggest donors in this country. presidential election of the year.
Mellon’s donation to Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. last month accounted for most of the $68.8 million the group reported raising in May, new records show. The donation, recorded the day after Trump’s conviction in New York, is helping fuel the super PAC’s planned $100 million advertising campaign over the summer.
In all, Mellon has donated $100 million to super PACs associated with presidential candidates — making him one of the biggest financial figures in the 2024 campaign. Before last month, the Wyoming-based investor had donated $25 million each to the super pro-Trump PAC and another that supported Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent campaign.
The Kennedy-aligned super PAC, American Values 2024, did not report any other donations from Mellon in its filings covering financial activity in May. But the Democrats highlighted Mellon’s financial support by both men as part of an effort to cast Kennedy, the scion of a famous Democratic family, as a party-pooper candidate supported by the Republican Party.
Thursday’s filings also showed that legal expenses continued to drain Trump’s campaign coffers as his criminal trial in New York drew to a close.
More than $3.6 million — or 85% — of all the money spent by his leadership PAC Save America last month went toward legal expenses. Save America served as the main campaign vehicle to pay these bills. The law firm of Trump’s lead lawyer in the criminal trial, Todd Blanche, received about half that amount, $1.8 million. The PAC also entered June with a total of $861,000 in unpaid legal bills.
Since Trump left office, Save America has spent more than $83 million on legal bills.
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