Yes, it’s NBC News reporting the details on this which makes the issue somewhat suspect and akin to a clickbait headline.
On the other hand, the numbers don’t really lie and are based on disclosures provided from within the campaign. Still, on yet another hand, Trump has been a fundraising juggernaut for so long that even the highest of the rocket ships must, at some point, come back into regular orbit.
Since Trump’s 2024 campaign kicked off in November, his numbers have struggled to keep pace with the numbers he was putting up prior to the announcement:
Former President Donald Trump is strapped for campaign cash following the mid-November launch of his 2024 presidential campaign, according to end-of-year figures obtained exclusively by NBC News.
Trump, who has been the GOP’s most prolific fundraiser in recent years, pulled in about $9.5 million over the final six weeks of last year through his campaign and a joint fundraising committee, according to a person familiar with his haul.
The numbers were shared with NBC News in advance of Trump’s filing of the first campaign finance totals of his third bid for the presidency Tuesday.
Trump hasn’t been going full-throttle on fundraising yet, a point NBC makes in the story. The early campaign announcement had much more to do with keeping the Republican National Committee on tap for his legal bills and rebutting the various investigations against him as politically motivated.
In that respect, Trump hasn’t yet begun to fundraise for 2024 but that will change soon. As NBC notes, Trump’s fundraising operation has been on semi-hiatus and has yet to spin back up fully after the midterms:
There are other reasons to think that Trump can bolster his cash machine.
He has yet to launch a traditional mail-fundraising apparatus, which is a time-tested means of gathering small contributions in large numbers. And his early fundraising has been limited by his ban from Facebook, a top fundraising platform for him in 2016 and 2020, which kicked him off for inciting the mob that sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But the company has said the ban will be lifted.
Trump also hurt himself by announcing his campaign right after the midterm elections, a fundraising doldrums for candidates across the partisan and ideological spectrum.
Candidates often announce their presidential campaign with the intention of raising a few million dollars in the days following. It’s a sort of early “money bomb” as on-the-fence donors finally get in once a candidate makes it official.
In Trump’s case, few doubted he was going to run again which left his early announcement as more of a formality than a surprise.
In order to compete he’ll have to start pulling in the small-dollar donors as he has for the past several years. Trump has flourished not on the large, one-time fundraising dinners or events as many candidates do, but on the monthly contributions of millions of supporters.
Trump’s fundraising numbers don’t mean all that much at the moment. In a few months, however, that will change as the competition will begin in earnest. If his campaign is strapped and unable to compete by holding his signature massive rallies and events around the country, he’ll find a tougher road in the 2024 primary than expected.
