Trump groups amass $124 million ahead of midterm elections
By David Wright, CNN
Donald Trump‘s network of political advocacy groups reported a cash stockpile of $124 million at the end of March, putting significant resources at the former President’s disposal for the midterm elections and beyond.
The fundraising hauls, according to the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission, rival the Republican National Committee itself, which reported nearly $45 million in cash on hand at the end of March.
One of the largest Trump groups, his leadership committee Save America PAC, reported raising more than $5 million in March, and it accounted for over $112 million of the Trump network’s combined cash on hand.
Save America also made its first big transfer of the year in March, giving $500,000 to the Get Georgia Right PAC, which is supporting former US Sen. David Perdue‘s primary challenge to GOP Gov. Brian Kemp in the Peach State. It’s one of the year’s first examples of Trump leveraging his fundraising power against Republicans he sees as insufficiently loyal.
Trump has targeted Kemp for defeat in 2022, following the governor’s refusal in 2020 to help overturn the result of the presidential election in the state. The transfer of $500,000 to a group attacking Kemp marks an escalation of the former President’s involvement with the 2022 midterms, moving beyond endorsements and more limited contributions.
Previous recipients of Trump’s financial support ranged from Republican incumbents such as Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky and John Kennedy of Louisiana to insurgent GOP challengers such as Harriet Hageman, who is running against Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in Wyoming and received a $5,000 contribution from Save America in December.
Two other key groups in Trump’s network — the Save America joint fundraising committee and the Make America Great Again PAC — report their fundraising and spending activity on a quarterly schedule, unlike Save America PAC, which reports monthly. Those two groups together had about $11.8 million in cash on hand at the end of March.
The combined efforts of Trump’s affiliated groups and the variety of campaign finance laws that govern them allow for an efficient, high-volume fundraising and spending operation.
Joint fundraising committees, which allow candidates and groups to raise and spend money together, are particularly efficient for building cash reserves, and the Save America joint fundraising committee alone brought in over $19 million in the first quarter of 2022. Over the same period, it transferred more than $14 million to the other two groups, Save America PAC and Make America Great Again PAC.
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