Former President Donald Trump raised over $45 million in the last three months, his campaign said on Wednesday night. If accurate, that would be more than triple of the haul brought in by the Republican primary opponent closest to him in the polls, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis reported on Wednesday raising $15 million between July 1 and Sept. 30, the third quarter of the year. But because of federal donor limits and rules, only some of that can be used for the primary election while the rest must be earmarked for a general election effort. As a result, the New York Times reported the Florida governor’s presidential campaign might have as little as $5 million in their coffers headed into the fall.
On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign said it had close to $36 million in the bank available for the primaries.
“The DeSanctimonious campaign admits to only having $5 million cash on hand available for the primary election — a grave indication that Ron's candidacy may not live to see the Iowa caucuses in January, or even, the end of this month,” the Trump campaign gloated in an email.
The $45.5 million total raised for Trump’s efforts will be split between his official campaign and an affiliated committee, Save America PAC. If the numbers advertised by the campaign line up with official filings with the Federal Election Commission due on Oct. 15, that would mean the 2024 GOP frontrunner raised $10 million more than he did last quarter, from April to the end of June. And it would be just a few million less than what he raised during the same period in the 2020 election cycle, when he was a sitting president and running unopposed for his party’s nomination.
No other candidate in the Republican or Democratic presidential primaries have publicized their most recent fundraising totals besides Trump and DeSantis. Trump has so far outraised each of his GOP primary opponents and President Joe Biden this year.
While DeSantis’ campaign billed his $15 million quarter as a “DeSantis Comeback” that “shattered expectations,” he raised $5 million less than he did the previous quarter, when he announced his campaign.
And despite Trump’s financially fruitful three months coming as he faces 91 felony charges across four criminal cases and his business empire is battling in a civil fraud trial in New York, his poll numbers have never been better. Much of his campaigning and fundraising appeals have utilized his legal troubles to whip up sympathy and grievance among his supporters -- to the tune of $4 million in the day after he was booked at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia and became the first president in U.S. history to have a mug shot taken.
Nationally, he leads by an average of 43 percentage points among Republican primary voters, according to the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. In the key early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, he leads the field by around 30 percentage points in most recent polls.
DeSantis is the only other candidate consistently polling in double-digits nationally and clocks in at second in most Iowa polls, but has fallen behind former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the latest New Hampshire and South Carolina polls.
“We took out Ron [DeSantis], a far less talented person than people originally believed, Crooked Joe [Biden] is down to ‘us’ by 11 Points, and now we have to focus on one of the most overrated people I know, Nikki [Haley],” Trump posted on his social media network early Thursday morning, falsely stating polls show him with a double-digit lead over Biden. Most head-to-head polls show them virtually tied. “This reminds me of 2016 all over again, when Globalist [Fox News chairman Rupert] Murdoch pushed Jeb [Bush], and all others, as they fell like flies.”