EGN NEWS DESK
For a number of hours on Saturday night, drivers on a sometimes scenic stretch of Palm Beach, Fla., had their views of the coast obscured by a line of luxurious automobiles whose house owners had been mingling inside a mansion throughout the highway.
The shoreline-blocking Range Rovers, Aston Martins and Bentleys hinted on the deep-pocketed donors attending a fund-raising dinner for former President Donald J. Trump’s presidential marketing campaign, which it and the Republican National Committee mentioned had raised greater than $50.5 million.
The occasion, hosted by the billionaire John Paulson at his residence, adopted a concerted push by the Trump marketing campaign to deal with a longstanding monetary disparity with President Biden and Democrats as each events gear up for the overall election.
The reported complete, which can’t be independently verified forward of marketing campaign finance filings within the coming months, is sort of double the $26 million that President Biden’s marketing campaign mentioned it raised final month at a celebrity-studded occasion at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, senior advisers to the previous president who’re successfully his marketing campaign managers, mentioned in a press release that the entire made it “clearer than ever that we’ve the message, the operation and the cash to propel President Trump to victory on November 5.”
Mr. Trump’s occasion, simply down the highway from his residence at Mar-a-Lago, was in some methods a much less flashy affair than its Democratic antecedent, one which traded Hollywood star energy and New York City power for a hotter clime, an abundance of palm timber and the manicured lawns typical of an island refuge for the moneyed elite.
But expectations forward of the dinner had been excessive, with Mr. Paulson and Trump marketing campaign advisers vowing to outdo the Biden occasion. An invitation obtained by The New York Times urged a contribution of $814,600 or the comparatively extra modest $250,000.
The cash raised, in line with the invitation, shall be directed to the Trump 47 Committee, a shared fund-raising settlement among the many Trump marketing campaign, the Republican National Committee and roughly 40 state events. Such joint accounts can absorb checks of as a lot as $814,600.
Mr. Trump, who has lengthy had a penchant for superlatives, had predicted on his social media website, Truth Social, that the dinner could be the “greatest evening in Fund Raising of ALL TIME!!!”
The former president arrived shortly earlier than 7 p.m. along with his spouse, Melania Trump, who has made sparse appearances at political occasions throughout her husband’s third presidential marketing campaign. “This has been some unbelievable night earlier than it even begins,” Mr. Trump mentioned earlier than posing for a photograph with Mr. Paulson and getting into the home.
Around 100 folks had been anticipated to attend the dinner, with quite a few billionaires on the visitor listing.
Among the occasion’s co-chairs had been acquainted megadonors and Trump allies, together with Rebekah Mercer, a serious donor to Mr. Trump in 2016; Linda McMahon, a former Trump cupboard official; and Robert Bigelow, who backed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida within the Republican major however in February donated $5 million to Mr. Trump’s tremendous PAC.
Not all of those that wrote checks opted to attend. John Catsimatidis, a New York grocery retailer chain proprietor with a protracted historical past with Mr. Trump, was a co-chair of the occasion however mentioned different commitments saved him from being current.
Under the shared fund-raising settlement, the primary $6,600 of any contribution will go to Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign. The subsequent $5,000 will go to his Save America PAC, the political account he has used to pay his authorized payments. (That quantity is the utmost contribution allowed to Save America below federal guidelines.) The R.N.C. will get the following $413,000, after which will come dozens of state events.
Mr. Trump and his crew have successfully taken over the R.N.C., putting in new management, pushing by means of layoffs and restructuring the nationwide party’s operations to align it extra intently with the marketing campaign.
Fund-raising has been a serious focus of the overhaul, significantly as Mr. Biden and Democrats have banked money and constructed a major monetary benefit during the last a number of months.
The Biden marketing campaign mentioned earlier on Saturday that it, the Democratic Party and affiliated committees had raised greater than $90 million in March, and that collectively that they had $192 million available going into April. The Trump marketing campaign mentioned it and the Republican National Committee had raised $65.6 million in March, the previous president’s finest fund-raising month up to now, and that they, together with their shared accounts, had $93.1 million available.
Mr. Biden’s marketing campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, mentioned in a press release that the Democratic fund-raising numbers stood in “stark distinction to Trump’s cash-strapped operation.”
Mr. Biden’s totals had been helped partly by the glamorous occasion in entrance of 5,000 donors on the storied Radio City Music Hall. Mr. Biden and two of his Democratic predecessors, former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, had been interviewed by the late-night host and comic Stephen Colbert.
Plenty of musical visitors, together with Queen Latifah, Lizzo and Lea Michele, entertained the group.
The particular visitors billed on the invitation for the Trump fund-raiser had been three of his former major rivals who’ve since turn into marketing campaign surrogates and joined him on the path: Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech entrepreneur.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
