GOP anxious Trump’s ‘ceaseless’ donor spamming is about to backfire: ‘It’s a massive issue’
Former president’s iron grip on GOP extends to its wallet
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump remains on top of the Republican Party and the most popular choice for the party’s 2024 nomination, and a new report details just how far-ranging an effect his control over the GOP is having.
An Axios report on Thursday revealed that Mr Trump’s dominance over the party can now be measured by more than just soft political power; the party’s fundraising trends show that the former president now controls nearly a quarter of the share of donations bound from GOP donors to candidates and causes.
According to the news outlet, 22 per cent of all money raised on the GOP’s digital WinRed fundraising platform went to just two committees, both controlled by Mr Trump: the Save America PAC and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee.
That share of the GOP’s fundraising stream is unheard of for a single candidate’s war chest. The fundraisng stream now controlled by Mr Trump eclipses the combined fundraising efforts of both the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP’s two Capitol Hill campaign arms, according to Axios.
Mr Trump’s dominance is causing severe consternations for party insiders who fret about what effect it will have on local candidates’ fundraising efforts as well as the amount of power it gives the former president over the party.
Mr Trump has spent little of his massive war chest over the past year, and has yet to indicate a major spending push for the 2022 midterms. It’s largely assumed he is planning a 2024 bid to retake the White House, and if so the former president will be in a far stronger position than any other GOP candidate to do so.
“[T}here is obviously a party interest here that is hurt by this,” one GOP operative complained to the news outlet.
“It’s a massive issue,” fretted another. “The tactics they use are not sustainable.”
A spokesperson for the former president contended, however, that Mr Trump was responsible for the enthusiasm that GOP donors were feeling.
"No one in the history of the Republican Party has done more to grow the donor pool at every level than President Donald J Trump, something that pays untold dividends to Republican candidates and causes across the nation,” said Taylor Budowich.
The former president has made a number of endorsements in races where GOP candidates are challenging various Republicans he views as disloyal, but none have seen a direct spending effort on their behalf by Mr Trump’s various organisations.
At the beginning of February, the Trump team announced that his two committees had between them more than $122m cash on hand, a staggering amount that was buoyed by $51 m in fundraising over the second half of 2021. The total was more than either the Republican or Democratic national committees reported in the bank.
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