Former President Donald Trump reported a large spike in campaign contributions from local residents immediately after he was convicted of 34 felonies in the New York hush money case, according to federal filings.
Trump received 915 contributions totaling $6,888 from residents of Bartholomew County and the surrounding area within 24 hours of his conviction, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission. By comparison, Trump reported $5,448 in local contributions during the first 29 days of May, before his conviction.
The amount raised from local residents on May 30 and May 31 represents about 15% of the total $44,467 in contributions that the former president’s principal campaign committee has received locally for his reelection bid, the filings show. The figures do not include any fundraising in June.
The filings, which are current as of May 31, offer the first glimpse of the Republican fundraising explosion after Trump became the first former American president to convicted of felony charges.
A New York jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of 34 felony charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actress who said the two had sex, The Associated Press reported.
Trump’s campaign outraised President Joe Biden by more than $60 million last month, according to the filings.
Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee together raised a robust $85 million in May and reported $212 million in the bank at the end of the month, according to wire reports. The strong showing does not include roughly $40 million raised by Biden and his top surrogates in recent days — or a separate $20 million donation from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to pro-Biden groups.
The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said it raised a jaw-dropping $141 million in May, including tens of millions donated immediately after Trump was convicted. At the same time, billionaire Timothy Mellon donated a stunning $50 million to a pro-Trump super PAC the day after Trump’s guilty verdict, according to the filings.
Overall, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee reported more than $170 million in the bank at the end of May, although Biden’s campaign questioned whether the groups were devoting resources to cover Trump’s legal fees, according to the AP.
Taken together, the numbers detailed in the campaigns’ latest Federal Election Commission filings suggest Democrats may still maintain a cash advantage in the 2024 presidential contest. But almost four months before Election Day, Trump’s side is closing the gap — if it isn’t closed already.
The new fundraising figures also underscore the extent to which the rules of presidential politics are being rewritten in the Trump era.
At almost any other time in U.S. history, a presidential candidate would have been forced to leave an election after being convicted of dozens of felonies, according to wire reports. But in 2024, Trump’s guilty verdict has instead fueled a massive fundraising surge that puts his team in a position to ramp up advertising and swing- state infrastructure just as voters begin paying closer attention to the election.
Trump’s political career has endured through two impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally salacious storylines, including the emergence of a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.
Trump also faces three other felony indictments — including illegally retaining classified documents taken with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after he left office in January 2021, conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss to Biden in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol and participating in a scheme to illegally try to overturn his narrow loss to Biden in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia, according to wire reports.
The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who said she had sex with the married Trump in 2006, according to the AP.
The $130,000 payment came from Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen to buy Daniels’ silence during the final weeks of the 2016 race in what prosecutors allege was an effort to interfere in the election. When Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses, which prosecutors said was an unlawful attempt to mask the true purpose of the transaction.
Trump’s lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for legal services, according to wire reports. He denied the sexual encounter, and his lawyers argued at trial that his celebrity status made him an extortion target.
