Former President Trump plans to have a fundraiser on Saturday with the hope of raising $33 million to close the fundraising gap with President Biden in the general election race.
John Paulson, a hedge fund founder, will host the event for Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, after the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) raised $65.6 million in March, showing significant improvement after a slow start to the year.
RNC Chair Michael Whatley praised Trump's fundraising efforts, highlighting the unity between the RNC and Trump campaign in their pursuit of victory. statement announcing the March haul.
These months were before Trump officially became the presumptive GOP nominee and before his campaign formed a joint fundraising committee with the RNC to make donations more efficient.
However, Biden has far surpassed Trump in fundraising efforts. The Biden campaign raised $53 million in February, increasing its cash on hand to $155 million, while the Trump campaign and its joint fundraising committee received just over $20 million in that month, leaving them with $42 million in cash.
This adds to months of Biden outpacing Trump in fundraising, despite both being highly likely to be their party’s nominees since the start of their campaigns.
Biden's campaign achieved another significant fundraising success with a star-studded event last week, featuring a discussion with him and former Presidents Obama and Clinton, moderated by late-night host Stephen Colbert. Other celebrities like Queen Latifah, Ben Platt, and Lea Michele also attended.
This event raised $26 million for the Biden campaign, and now Trump will attempt to surpass that with an event of his own.
“The response to our fundraising efforts has been overwhelming, and we’ve raised over $33 million so far. There is massive support amongst a broad spectrum of donors. The dinner is relatively small in nature, and we are almost at our cap,” Paulson said in a statement announcing the event.
The event is anticipated to include several wealthy guests, such as billionaire TikTok investor Jeff Yass and Michael Hodges, the founder of a payday lending company. It will also involve billionaire John Catsimatidis, who ran for mayor of New York City in 2013.
The Biden campaign has criticized Paulson and these guests, referring to reported comments from Hodges in 2019 suggesting that contributing to Trump’s reelection campaign could give fellow payday lenders access to his administration. It also targeted Yass, who proposed privatizing Social Security in a 2019 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.
Co-chairs of the event include Las Vegas-based businessman Robert Bigelow and casino tycoon Steve Wynn.
Attendees are asked to donate $250,000 per person or $814,600 per person as a “chairman” contributor and will receive a personalized copy of Trump’s book, “Our Journey Together,” along with photos from his administration.
The Associated Press contributed.
