{"id":9088,"date":"2024-04-21T20:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=9088"},"modified":"2024-04-21T20:00:13","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T17:00:13","slug":"trump-uses-hush-money-trial-to-squeeze-small-donors-court-big-spenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ch.jfdi.cc\/?p=9088","title":{"rendered":"Trump uses hush money trial to squeeze small donors, court big spenders"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Alexandra Ulmer and Jason Lange<\/p>\n

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is using his\u00a0hush money trial\u00a0to squeeze his loyal army of small donors and personally lobby major backers as he scrambles to reduce a\u00a0major fundraising disadvantage\u00a0with Democratic President Joe Biden.
\nHis campaign has been firing off daily, dramatically worded fundraising appeals to small donors \u2013 who rallied to support him when he was first charged in the case last year \u2013 since the trial in New York began with jury selection on Monday.
\n\u201cI could be locked up for life,\u201d one email read this week. \u201cI should be campaigning across America and fighting for our country. But instead, I\u2019m stuck in Biden\u2019s corrupt court AGAIN,\u201d read another, although Trump is being tried in New York state court by the Manhattan district attorney and not by the Biden administration.
\nHe faces up to four years in prison if convicted<\/strong>, although many of those who have been convicted of that crime in the past have faced punishments like probation and fines.
\nThere are early warning signs that Trump\u2019s small-donor base may be flagging, suggesting Trump may have to rely more heavily on major donors ahead of the\u00a0Nov. 5 rematch\u00a0against Biden.
\nThe biggest fundraising group collecting money for his campaign \u2013 known as the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee \u2013 reported on Monday that it raised $33.6 million in the first quarter from donors who gave $200 or less.
\nThat was about $17 million less than the amount raised from small donors at the same point in the 2020 election cycle by Trump\u2019s main fundraising group at the time, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, according to a Reuters review of disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission.
\nSmall donors have historically been crucial funders of Trump\u2019s presidential campaigns, and last year they helped Trump raise\u00a0$13 million\u00a0in donations in the week after his indictment in the New York case.
\nBut, after initial fundraising spikes off the back of early court appearances last year, donations have slowed as charges accumulated in more cases.
\nA degree of \u201cTrump fatigue<\/strong>\u201d appears to have set in after nine years of the former real estate tycoon blasting out near-daily overtures for cash, said Zachary Albert, a politics professor at Brandeis University who has studied small donors.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s been fairly unscrupulous in his appeals,\u201d said Albert. \u201cThe norm is to treat these small donors as cash cows that you squeeze as much as you can, as often as you can.\u201d
\nStill, Albert expects an uptick in donations during the trial as the campaign seeks to capitalise on supporters\u2019 sentiment that Trump is being unfairly tried.
\nThe Trump campaign did not respond to a request for details on its fundraising strategy. It was due on Saturday to report on its finances through March.
\nTrump\u2019s campaign reported raising $10.9 million in February, well below the $21.3 million that Biden\u2019s reported raising.
\nDONOR CALLS, BIG FUNDRAISERS<\/strong>
\nGiven Biden\u2019s financial advantage and Trump\u2019s spiralling legal costs, Trump is increasingly focused on landing big cheques.
\nThe Republican candidate is ratcheting up donor events, placing calls to benefactors on the fence and tapping a money-raising operation that has merged with the Republican National Committee, according to three people briefed on the activity.
\n\u201cThe donors I\u2019ve needed him to talk to, he\u2019s been exceedingly effective in terms of getting large cheques and support from them,\u201d said one Trump fundraiser, who asked to remain anonymous to share private\u00a0conversations.
\nIn the last two weeks, Trump has held fundraisers in Georgia and Florida. The campaign aims to raise at least $5 million from each event, although it has settled for less, one of the sources said.
\nAn\u00a0April 6 fundraiser\u00a0at hedge fund manager John Paulson\u2019s Palm Beach home, which Trump\u2019s campaign said raised more than $50 million, attracted heavy-hitter co-hosts including hedge-fund investor Robert Mercer and his daughter and conservative activist Rebekah, investor Scott Bessent and casino mogul Phil Ruffin.
\nSome longtime Republican donors remain reticent to back Trump,<\/strong> however, often citing what they see as his erratic personality or the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters as their main stumbling points.
\nSeveral told Reuters they are holding back out of concerns about their donations going to Trump\u2019s mushrooming legal fees.
\nA fundraising group run by Trump has spent more than\u00a0$55 million on legal bills\u00a0since the start of 2023. So far, the political contributions paying Trump\u2019s legal bills have largely come from small donors.
\nAnother Republican donor said he was comfortable backing Trump again but first wanted to understand what strategy the RNC had to win in battleground states.
\nOne fundraiser said Trump\u2019s legal problems, which include four criminal cases, had had the opposite effect on some donors, prompting some to reach for their chequebooks.
\n\u201cThese trials are the catalyst of phone calls,\u201d said George Glass, a retired businessman who was Trump\u2019s ambassador to Portugal.
\nIn a sign of how the trial is affecting Trump\u2019s fundraising outreach, Trump this week called in from New York to Florida to speak during a meeting of the Rockbridge Network, a low-profile but influential group of conservative donors, according to a source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A fundraising group run by Trump has spent more than million on legal bills since the start of 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4703,652,383,2699,2552,492,3397,1221,1512,6760,5281,3894,5702,2577,2511,932,21,3,166,181,4704,1600,6117,3343,2515,2544,1594,2817,4085,7355,7091,250,3330,1420,756,6704,185,7357,1346,2628,393,3331,4371,301,610,4843,1670,131,287,5970,4620,1022,4462,2714,2871,7356,1358,1906,841,7254,380,5129,6305],"class_list":["post-9088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other","tag-activist","tag-army","tag-attack","tag-battleground-states","tag-beach","tag-biden","tag-biden-administration","tag-campaign","tag-cash","tag-casino","tag-charged","tag-charges","tag-committee","tag-concerns","tag-costs","tag-court","tag-crime","tag-cyprus","tag-donald-trump","tag-donations","tag-donors","tag-election","tag-event","tag-events","tag-february","tag-fees","tag-fines","tag-fundraiser","tag-fundraising","tag-fundraising-appeals","tag-georgia","tag-google","tag-google-news","tag-indictment","tag-joe-biden","tag-jury-selection","tag-main","tag-major-donors","tag-meeting","tag-money","tag-new-york","tag-news","tag-operation","tag-politics","tag-portugal","tag-president","tag-president-joe-biden","tag-prison","tag-real-estate","tag-real-estate-tycoon","tag-report","tag-republican","tag-republican-donors","tag-republican-presidential-candidate","tag-request","tag-small-donors","tag-support","tag-trial","tag-trump","tag-trump-campaign","tag-us","tag-warning","tag-who"],"acf":{"keyphrase":"","keywords":"","sourceimg":"","country-category":""},"yoast_head":"\nTrump 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