Dem
51
GOP
49
Thar's money in them thar felony convictions. The May fundraising totals are in, and the Donald Trump campaign left the Joe Biden campaign in the dust. The former brought in $141 million and the latter brought in $85 million. If you believe the Trump campaign when it says it brought in $53 million after their candidate's conviction, then that accounts for nearly the entire gap. And if you presume that the conviction continued to goose fundraising beyond the first 24 hours, then the conviction probably accounts for the entire gap, and then some.
As a consequence of the robust May haul for Trump, the two campaigns are now roughly even in terms of how much money they've brought in. In terms of just the campaigns themselves, Trump's campaign had $116.6 million in the bank on May 31, with $91.6 million for Biden. If you add in the RNC and DNC, then it's $170 million for the red team and $157 million for the blue team. If you add in all allied groups, then it's $212 million for the pro-Biden set and... an unknown amount for the pro-Trump set, because the Trump campaign did not report that total. However, one of Trump's PACs did get a $50 million dollar donation from Timothy Mellon, so surely the money that is under the entire Trump umbrella is comparable to, and probably a bit ahead of, Biden's $212 million.
Biden's fundraising is your standard, presidential-candidate operation. With Trump, on the other hand, there are always questions:
With Trump, you never know. Sometimes, the FEC doesn't know, either.
On the billionaire front, we'll pass along one other, possibly relevant, note. Yesterday, Melinda French Gates announced her pick for president, the first time she's ever done so. She also wrote an op-ed for CNN explaining herself. A couple of key passages:
As President Joe Biden faces former President Donald Trump in another contest for the White House, the stakes for women and families couldn't be higher.
I've never endorsed a presidential candidate before. My work on gender equality and global health often requires me to work with leaders on both sides of the aisle, so I've avoided talking publicly about who I voted for in past elections.
But this year is different.
After Trump's first term in office endangered the health of women, compromising their safety and robbing them of essential freedoms, I'm supporting Biden this election and asking others to do the same...
The former president imposed restrictions on the federal family planning program, Title X, that made it harder for people from low-income backgrounds to access contraceptives. His often divisive, sometimes violent rhetoric throughout his campaigns and administration—from the sexist attacks he lobbed at women journalists to calling for his opponent to be jailed—has contributed to a hostile political climate for women in office and allowed threats against election workers, most of whom are women, to proliferate.
And he deliberately appointed Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in a decision with far-reaching and catastrophic consequences for women and families...
French Gates is well aware that if Trump is reelected, he will likely get to pick much younger replacements for Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. So, as we've written before, this certainly sounds like someone who is likely to get out the checkbook—or the Brinks truck—for Biden '24. That said, since French Gates has plenty of experience with advocacy, she might choose to conduct pro-Biden electioneering independently, under the auspices of her own organization. Whatever the case may be, given her concern about women's rights in general, and reproductive rights in particular, it seems improbable that she's going to offer an endorsement and an op-ed and then just leave it at that. (Z)