(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump raised less than $10 million after he announced his third White House campaign, a disappointing haul for the former president already facing an uphill battle in his comeback.
Trump raised just $4.9 million with his 2024 campaign and joint fundraising committee in the final 33 days of 2022, according to reports filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission. That adds to the $4.2 million received through donors to the joint committee in the first two weeks after his Nov. 15 announcement.
The showing underscores the stunning reversal in donors’ sentiment toward Trump. In the roughly two months between losing the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, he raised $250 million.
The relatively paltry number at a time Trump is trying to dissuade other Republicans from challenging him is “certainly not a sign of strength,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist.
To be sure, the fact Trump started his campaign almost two years before the 2024 election and after the midterms, when many donors were tapped out, hurt his numbers, Wilson said.
Trump is now firing up his campaign. He held his first events of the year in the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina on Jan. 28 and said, “I’m more committed now than I ever was.”
The former president “is an unstoppable force that continues to dominate politics,” spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement on Tuesday. Cheung said Trump had built a “second-to-none operation” since he announced in November, and that he’d “wage an aggressive and fully-funded campaign.”
Yet some polls show Republicans who like Trump and his policies are increasingly looking for an alternative like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis — who’s widely expected to enter the race — someone who has adopted the former president’s positions and combative style but doesn’t have his baggage.
Besides being blamed for Republicans losing control of the White House, US House and US Senate on his watch and winning a smaller-than-expected House majority last year, Trump faces multiple investigations for his actions regarding the Jan. 6 insurrection, his handling of classified documents, and other matters. The televised hearings of the House committee investigating the Capitol assault riveted Americans and culminated in a recommendation to have him criminally prosecuted.
A new poll released on Tuesday by Republican pollster Whit Ayres and his colleagues for the Bulwark, an anti-Trump conservative news and opinion site, found that Trump has slipped to his lowest point since he emerged on the political scene eight years ago.
While about 30% of likely GOP voters in the national poll said they’d support Trump no matter what — even if he ran as an independent, something that would almost guarantee a Democratic victory — a majority is prepared to move on. More than half of GOP voters think Trump can’t win or is too focused on the past, the poll found.
If voters coalesce around one or two alternatives, Trump “will have a significant challenge winning the Republican nomination again,” a memo released by the pollsters said.
“The Republican presidential contest in 2024 is wide open,” the pollsters said. “Donald Trump remains a significant force, but far from the overwhelming favorite.”
Several Republican mega-donors have already said they won’t be supporting Trump in 2024, including Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive officer of Blackstone Inc., and Thomas Peterffy, the founder of Interactive Brokers Group Inc. Citadel’s billionaire founder, Ken Griffin, has said he’s supporting DeSantis over the “three-time loser” Trump.
One of Trump’s perceived advantages in the Republican nomination contest is his army of small-dollar donors, who’ve donated almost $1.2 billion to him in amounts under $200 since he first became a candidate in 2015.
Trump, who reaches those supporters through ads on Facebook and Google, emails and text messages, raised $1.4 million from them for his campaign over the last 33 days of 2022, the filings show. Trump has spent less than $130,000 on digital ads since launching his campaign, according to AdImpact.
While Trump’s campaign had a small bank balance, his two political action committees reported a total of $18.5 million cash on hand, but can only donate $5,000 of that amount to it. Make America Great Again Inc., set up by Trump allies to support candidates he endorsed in the midterm elections and his 2024 presidential campaign, reported $54.1 million cash on hand.
At the same time, Trump’s campaign and joint fundraising committee spent $7 million during the last 33 days of the year, even though he largely eschewed campaigning. They ended 2022 with $6.8 million cash on hand.
