Beyond the electoral programs, if there are any – Donald Trump’s is more of an autocratic ideology, the so-called Project 2025 -, the November presidential campaign is measured in accounting data: those of fundraising and the percentages of voting intention of the candidates. This week, for the first time this year, Democrat Joe Biden has overtaken his Republican rival in the polls, according to FiveThirtyEight’s national average of polls. The Democrat has gained 1.8 points since May 30, when Trump’s guilty verdict for the Stormy Daniels case. But, at the same time, and also for the first time since the justice system identified him as a convict, the former president has surpassed his adversary in revenue, drained in recent months by the diversion of funds to cover his exorbitant legal expenses. . If Biden received a week ago, in a single night, 28 million dollars from his supporters in Hollywood, the check for 50 million that the Republican registered on May 31 – a day after the ruling – from the hands of millionaire Timothy Mellon has cleaned up his campaign finances, while boosting his image as a candidate.
Trump’s campaign surpassed President Biden’s fundraising by more than $60 million last month, according to federal records released last Thursday, which detail the explosion of endorsements following the verdict of the Manhattan popular jury. Thanks to that injection of 50 million, but also to the small contributions of thousands of anonymous donors, many of them neophytes moved by the jury’s ruling, Trump has managed to close the funding gap with his rival. Biden has maintained a considerable lead for months and continues to raise money, but the accounts now indicate a show of political force above even justice.
In total, Trump’s campaign raised $141 million in May, almost double the $85 million recorded by the Democrat’s political action committees (PACs; the main engine of the campaigns). Trump’s super PAC raised nearly $69 million in May, including half a hundred million from banker Mellon, just the day after the verdict. In total, the Republican coffers today have 170 million dollars, compared to the Democrats’ 212 million.
The latest data from the Federal Election Commission suggests that Democrats can still maintain a cash advantage heading into November. But the tables seem to turn quickly—as do the volatile polls—precisely when voters begin to pay attention to the elections. Greater fundraising for Trump means more power and influence in the hinge states, those where the battle to decide the next US president is really decided.
Wall Street takes sides
The accounting nature of the campaigns in the United States is also measured in the advertising investment, for example the 50 million spent by Biden for his latest and aggressive advertisement, a way to warm up the engines for the first televised debate of the two contenders, of which the independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy has been dropped for not meeting the requirements (due to a conspiracy against him, according to Kennedy). The advertising investment of the Trump campaign has not fallen short either: after receiving the check for 50 million dollars, he contracted 100 million in ads until Labor Day, which in the United States is celebrated on the first Monday in September. Another indicator that the election, like almost everything in the country, is about dollars, rather than ideas: success in November may depend in part on which of the two sides will continue to have multimillion-dollar backers.
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The positioning of large fortunes is another notable factor: a good part of Wall Street more openly supports Trump. Even those who were suspicious of the Republican for instigating the assault on the Capitol in January 2021 have closed ranks, some as notorious as the head of Blackstone, Stephen Schwarzman, who then denounced Trump’s maneuvers and now assumes his ideas on the economy, immigration and politics. abroad.
The horizon projected by a new Trump mandate favors the market, especially that of fossil fuels, with a battery of deregulations to dismantle the controls imposed during the Biden presidency: one of the pillars of Project 2025 is precisely to annul the agencies federal government regulators. Trump’s supporters also include prominent representatives of the cryptocurrency business.
Meanwhile, Biden’s donors are keeping their fingers on the pulse. Billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently donated nearly $20 million to the president’s re-election campaign. Philanthropist Melinda French Gates broke her traditional discretion to speak out for the first time in favor of a candidate, the Democrat. “The elections will be very important for women and families and, this time, I cannot remain silent,” she posted on the social network X.
To encourage their followers in the face of the Trump gale, the team of Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, boasted this week of having raised “the largest total of any Democratic candidate in history for this moment in the” electoral cycle, the cited 212 million in available cash, out of a total of 558 million harvested since the launch of the campaign. As always when statistics or vote projections are handled, the difficult thing is to figure out if it is a still photo or a panoramic one.
The key to fundraising to be elected ‘number two’
The ability to make cash also seems to guide the choice of who will accompany Donald Trump as vice president, a mystery that will theoretically be resolved in Milwaukee during the Republican national convention, in mid-July.
Several of the main candidates to be his number two —North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum; Republican Senator Tim Scott, and Ohio Republican Senator JD Vance, who is gaining points by moments – have strained their respective collection machines. The financial team of the Republican National Committee evaluates its achievements every Wednesday, according to party sources cited by the information portal Axios. Getting along with Trump—in this the popular Vance, who has almost become a hagiographer of the former president, has the advantage—and his special telegenicity are other factors to take into account.
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