follow behind Vice President Kamala Harris In a 2024 cash dash, former President Trump is heading next week to Texas, a state that has long served as an ATM for Republican White House candidates.
Aiming to bridge the fundraising gap with Harris, the former president will chair a luncheon in Midland, Texas, on Oct. 2 as he woos donors in oil country. That luncheon will be followed by a cocktail reception in Houston, sources within Trump’s political circle confirmed to Fox News Digital.
Trump will also make headlines A fundraiser in Dallas during his swing through Texas.
According to the latest data available from the Federal Election Commission, Harris raised nearly $190 million for her 2024 campaign in August, more than four times the $44.5 million Trump’s team brought into her major campaign account last month.
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Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic presidential nominee, addresses the Economic Club of Pittsburgh on the Carnegie Mellon University campus in Pittsburgh on September 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
And according to FEC filings, the vice president’s campaign entered September with $235 million in cash, well ahead of the $135 million in Trump’s coffers.
The latest cash figures are another sign of the Vice President increase in fundraising Since replacing President Biden on the Democrat’s 2024 ticket two months ago.
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This is not the first time that Trump has faced a shortage in raising funds. She narrowly edged 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in her victory at the White House President Biden He lost re-election four years ago.
Dan Eberhart, an oil drilling CEO and major Republican donor and bundler, acknowledged, “The Democrats’ small-dollar fundraising machine is better.” Who raised large sums of money for Trump in the 2020 and 2024 cycles.
Former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, delivers remarks to the press at Trump Tower in New York City on September 26, 2024. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
Eberhart pointed to a surge in grassroots fundraising after Trump made history earlier this year as the first former or sitting president to be convicted in a criminal trial, and said that “Trump is the best candidate ever for Republicans.” The best are small-dollar fundraisers. But I still think, overall, the Democrats have a better small-dollar fundraising machine.”
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The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee enjoyed a fundraising lead over Trump and the Republican National Committee earlier this year. But Trump and the RNC outraised Biden and the DNC during second quarter 2024 fundraising, $331 million to $264 million.
Biden enjoyed a brief surge in fundraising after his disastrous performance in the debate with Trump in late June as donors spent large sums in a sign of support for the 81-year-old president.
President Biden participates in the first presidential debate of the 2024 election season with former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
But Biden’s intermittent and shaky debate presentation immediately fueled questions about his physical and mental ability to serve in the White House for the next four years and prompted calls for the president to end his bid for a second term. This gave rise to a growing voice of calls from within his own party. The brief surge in fundraising did not last and, by early July, began to slow significantly.
Biden dropped out of the 2024 race on July 21, and the party quickly coalesced around Harris, which immediately saw Harris’ fundraising surge, propelled by small-dollar donations.
And the Harris campaign highlighted that the vice president raised $47 million in the 24 hours following her first and possibly only debate with Trump earlier this month.
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, listens to former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, during a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on September 10, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“We’ve been looking for an effective way to raise low-dollar, small-dollar funds since Act Blue was first introduced,” Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, told Fox News, referring to the Democrats. -Line fundraising platform.
Brooks, who has close ties to the GOP donor class, said that while “there’s no doubt that Democrats have improved their small-dollar fundraising,” “I think we’re doing better and better. I like the trajectory we’re on.”
But a source in Trump’s political orbit said, “Most donors have already given. There’s not much juice left. Whatever juice is left will be in small-dollar online fundraising, and the moment for that is kind.” From passing references to debates, to choosing the running partner, everything has become a thing of the past.
Fundraising, along with polling, is a key metric in campaign politics and a measure of a candidate’s popularity and the strength of a campaign. The money raised is used to – among other things – hire staff, increase grassroots outreach and expand get-out-the-vote efforts, create and run ads on TV, radio, digital and mailers, and pay for candidates’ travel. Can be done for.
“We’re going to spend a lot more, and that will create a better ground game for Harris,” one veteran Republican operative told Fox News on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely.
But Brooks emphasized that “the defensive thing is that we have strong support among major donors and big dollar donors going into super PACs, which you have to keep in mind.”
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He added, “I think you have to look at the totality of pro-Trump money out there, and I think super PACs help level the playing field significantly.”
When asked about the fundraising deficit, Republican National Committee C“The Democrats have a lot of money. The Democrats have always had a lot of money,” Hayer Michael Whatley told Fox News Digital earlier this month.
However, he stressed that “We have the resources we need to get our message across to all the voters we’re talking to and we feel very comfortable that we’ll be able to see this campaign through, and we’re I’m going to win on November 5.”
