Donald Trump Raises $51 Million In June

campaign-money-parties

Donald Trump raised a surprisingly robust $51 million for his campaign and the GOP in June:

Donald Trump raised more than $26 million through online and mail solicitations in June and another $25 million at events with the Republican National Committee, his campaign announced Wednesday, a hefty haul that his allies hope will put to rest anxieties in the party about his fundraising prowess.

The combined $51 million falls short of the $68.5 million that Democratic contender Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party collected in June, which included $40.5 million she raised directly for her campaign. But it was the biggest monthly take by far for the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, who did not begin to hold fundraising events until late May. And it suggests Trump has the ability to quickly inject large sums of money into his campaign coffers by tapping into the fervor of his supporters.

Much of the campaign’s money appears to have come in during the final 10 days of the month, when Trump’s operation began aggressively soliciting money online for the first time. The Trump campaign announced Wednesday that more than 400,000 supporters made donations in June, with more than $3 million coming in just one day. That indicates that the billionaire will be able to post far larger totals in the coming months if he continues to actively urge his backers to give.

Aides said the pace of donations has continued in July and they believe Trump could build the kind of online fundraising juggernaut that drove Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Democratic nomination bid.

“We’re extremely pleased with the response,” said Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s national finance chairman, noting the campaign just kicked off its online fundraising efforts two and half weeks ago. “We are seeing similar levels to level of success that Bernie Sanders was able to attract from his supporters.”

When compared to the $70 million that Hillary Clinton raised during the same period or the $100 million that Mitt Romney raised during the same period four years ago, this isn’t entirely impressive, of course, but it does seem to indicate that the Trump campaign and the RNC have resolved the fundraising issues that were plaguing them in the immediate aftermath of Trump clinching the nomination. The problem that Trump faces is that it is unlikely that he’ll be able to out-raise Hillary Clinton, who already has a significant advantage in terms of money raised and cash on hand to the point where she can afford to run an anti-Trump television ad blitz this early in the election cycle. As long that advantage exists, Trump will face an uphill battle.

FILED UNDER: 2016 Election, US Politics, , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. SKI says:

    I’ll wait until the actual FEC filing before taking anything the Trump Campaign says as fact.

  2. Mark says:

    Let’s see what the FEC forms say, given he’s already misrepresented these figures once. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t raise even this amount.

  3. SKI says:

    I’ll particularly want to check how much of what is raised was raised legally (aka, from US citizens and in amounts under $2600)

  4. Scott says:

    I wonder if he included the $50M he gave to converting the loans the campaign owed him. Wouldn’t surprise me.

  5. James Pearce says:

    @Mark:

    Let’s see what the FEC forms say, given he’s already misrepresented these figures once.

    Good idea.

    I also wouldn’t be surprised to see that he raised $1 million from June 1-29, and then, $50 million on June 30th. He’s done that before too.

  6. SKI says:

    TPM tried to unpack the actual Trump campaign statement

    In the statement, the Trump campaign boasts that the “campaign’s newly established digital and small dollar operation rolled out fundraising emails which resulted in over $26 million dollars in donations for June.”

    It’s not clear whether the Trump campaign raised $26 million just through emails or raised $26 million total for the campaign and one of Trump’s joint fundraising efforts in June.

    Of that $26 million, the Trump campaign said that it raised $19.9 million for the campaign itself and $6.6 million for the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee between Trump and the RNC. The Wednesday statement from the campaign lumps these fundraising numbers together for the total of $26 million, but it’s not clear how much of the money raised for the Trump Make America Great Again Committee actually ended up in the Trump campaign’s coffers. Not all of the money raised through joint fundraising committees goes to the candidates themselves.

    The statement also said that Trump himself contributed $3.8 million to the campaign, but it’s not apparent whether his donation is included in the $19.9 million the campaign reported raising in June. The Trump campaign wrote that the candidate “personally contributed $3.8 million to the campaign this month which brings total contributions to $55 million.” It appears, though it is not clear, that the campaign is adding the $3.8 million from Trump to the $51 million raised to arrive at a total of $55 million for June (though again that seems to include some May money).

    The campaign also reported that it raised $25 million in the last week of May and the month of June for Trump Victory, a joint fundraising effort between the Trump campaign, the RNC, and several state Republican parties. Again, it’s not clear how much of that wound up with the Trump campaign, and it’s not apparent how much of that was raised in the month of June.

  7. Facebones says:

    @Scott: My thought exactly.

  8. gVOR08 says:

    Pretty scary. If true.

  9. michael reynolds says:

    Statistically speaking you are far better off assuming Trump is lying. His true statements are so infrequent they may be statistical noise.

  10. EddieInCA says:

    I doubt very much Trump raised that much money. I’d be surprised if on July 20th, the actual next FEC Filing Deadline, Trump had more than $20M raised in total.

    Since it came from no official source other than Trump’s Campaign, we should assume it’s a lie.

  11. C. Clavin says:

    There a lot of reports that this is a bogus number.
    Quelle surprise!!!

  12. Jen says:

    Given Trump’s track record of conflating and confusing numbers intentionally to inflate his own net worth, I’ll withhold reacting to this until after I see the actual reports. I read the press release issued by the campaign, and it’s almost nonsensical–nothing is clearly stated, so I have a feeling that something is being massaged a bit for appearances’ sake.

  13. MarkedMan says:

    I’m pretty sure Clinton’s number was for her campaign alone. Trump is combining his fundraising with RNC fundraising.

    And at least up until a few days ago Trump hadn’t filed the paperwork to actually convert the loans to donations despite having stated in the press release that they were “doing it today”. Josh Marshall speculated that it might have just been a sham to get some big donors off the fence, as they would be worried their money would just be used to pay The Donald.