On Wednesday, The Daily Beast reported that former President Donald Trump's newly declared 2024 presidential campaign now needs to do a reset and start begging for money from an already "exhausted" pool of donors.
This is because, while Trump has been raising money nonstop since leaving office, that money was going into super PACs that now cannot legally coordinate with his campaign, and must support him with independent expenditures only.
"While Trump has spent nearly all of the last two years licking his wounds at his Mar-a-Lago resort compound, he has also been bleeding his small-dollar donors dry," reported Roger Sollenberger. And it’s getting harder to convince them to part with their money. Trump’s most recent campaign finance filings revealed a total loss of more than $13 million, and every dollar he raises now is nearly wiped out by fundraising costs alone. And that’s not just a concern for Trump; it’s also been a concern for the GOP."
"To solve that problem, Trump’s allies have created super PACs to solicit money from wealthy backers in unlimited amounts," said the report. "But that’s created another headache, because the committees are really starting to pile up. The full Trump-aligned apparatus counts at least nine separate active political committees. But because they often reuse the same names, it’s maddening to keep track of them. And all the old committees in this armada still have money left over, too — more than $10 million combined, though Trump can’t lay claim to all of it."
Among these committees are Save America, with $69.7 million; the Make America Great Again PAC, with $1.1 million; Make America Great Again, Inc., with $23.4 million; Make America Great Again, Again! Inc., with $1.6 million; Trump Make America Great Again, with $5.4 million; and America First Action, with $1.5 million. All of these are run by various Trump allies, some are new whereas some are leftovers from the old campaign that are reportedly shutting down. Making things even more complicated, Trump loses certain funds by declaring, including the Republican National Committee support for his legal expenses — although they were already refusing to help him on certain issues, like the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
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"On Monday, the nonpartisan government watchdog Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC, accusing Trump of breaking the law on the eve of his big announcement," said the report. "Saurav Ghosh, CLC’s director of federal campaign finance reform, told The Daily Beast that Trump clearly wants to be able to use the money he’s raised for himself, but the law stands in the way of that. Ghosh said that those coordination rules are 'often openly trampled by candidates, particularly ones running for president.'"