As he faces the prospect of having to liquidate many of his assets to pay the massive legal judgments imposed on him, failed one-term former president Donald Trump is also facing a cash crunch that is keeping him from holding as many campaign rallies as he’d like, according to a revealing report from the New York Times.
“Despite years of professing massive wealth and boasting of his desire to ‘drain the swamp,’ the deeply transactional former president is leaning yet again on the cash of others, turning Mar-a-Lago into a staging ground for billionaires and others with their own agendas. In a sign of the Trump orbit’s urgent need for cash, at least two donors who made seven-figure pledges to support Mr. Trump this year were nudged to see if they could cut an eight-figure check — meaning $10 million or more — instead, according to a person familiar with the request.”
As a result, more Trump rallies are being planned in the state of Florida, closer to the disgraced ex-president’s Mar-a-Lago resort. But such a move could mean fewer trips to key battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, all of which were won by President Joe Biden in his 2024 matchup with Trump.
“For now, the Trump operation is ramping up its program for bundlers of midsize donations and planning to conserve cash costs by holding fewer rallies than they did at the end of the primary season.”
Trump is reportedly worried about the fundraising gap between him and Biden, which stands at nearly $100 million. Filings show the Biden team sitting on a massive $130 million war chest while Trump and the GOP have only accumulated $40 million. Such a differential could prove to be the margin of victory in a race that’s expected to be incredibly close and come down to a few thousand votes in several key states.
Potential Trump donors are also hesitant to support him because they fear being associated with him and the potential blowback if their names are linked with such a divisive political figure, the Times notes.
“Some Republican donors have emphasized that wealthy contributors may write large checks, but they often don’t want to see that fact disclosed, given the controversy that attaches itself to Mr. Trump. A number of donors faced public blowback in 2016 for their support.”
And then there’s the matter of the Trump campaign potentially using some contributions to help defray the cost of his mounting legal bills. Are major donors willing to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars just so Trump can continue to try and drag out the court cases against him? And even if they do, will it be enough to keep the ex-president out of prison on the 91 charges filed against him in several venues?
The good news, of course, is that fewer Trump campaign rallies mean we’ll likely be seeing much less of him in the months ahead. That alone is a reason to celebrate.
