Trump raises more money than Biden for first time this year
Donald Trump’s campaign last month raised more cash than Joe Biden’s for the first time in 2024, after the former president wooed big money donors and capitalised on his criminal trial.
The presumptive Republican nominee pulled in $76 million (£60 million) in donations in April, trouncing the $51 million the Biden campaign claimed it had raised.
The former president’s April total was bolstered by a record-setting $50.5 million fundraiser at the Florida home of billionaire investor John Paulson.
His campaign has also been firing off daily, dramatically-worded fundraising appeals to small donors who rallied to support him when he was first charged in his New York “hush money” case last year.
Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesman, said the “fundraising haul over Biden is especially remarkable when you consider he [Mr Trump] has been confined to a courtroom for nearly nine hours a day over the past four weeks”.
Mr Trump’s donations are also being used to pay his ballooning legal fees. His Save America group submitted a filing to the Federal Election Commission on Monday showing more than $3.3 million in legal expenditures during the month.
Mr Biden’s monthly sum was down notably from a $90 million March total which was boosted by a string of post-State of the Union events, including a fundraiser with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, which raised $26 million.
But the Democrat leader still boasts a larger war chest than his opponent.
Biden’s campaign reported to the Federal Election Commission that it had around $84 million in the bank at the end of April. The Trump campaign reported having $49 million.
“April’s haul reflects strong, consistent grassroots enthusiasm,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez said in a statement. “Trump’s operation continues to burn through cash and lag behind our growing and aggressive campaign, with no ground game and no demonstrable interest in talking to the voters they need to win.”
In June, the Biden campaign is planning another major fundraiser featuring Hollywood stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts in Los Angeles.
Mr Trump’s campaign said in March that it would be unable to match Mr Biden’s fundraising totals this year. Mr Trump won the 2016 presidential election despite being outraised by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Mr Biden and Mr Trump are tied in national polls with just over five months to go before the Nov 5 election. Recent polls show Mr Trump has the edge in the battleground states that will decide the election.
