Donald Trump raised more than $50 million on Saturday during a gigantic fundraising evening in Florida, a new crucial episode in the war on big donations which pits the Republican and Joe Biden in the race for the White House.
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In American electoral life, money, far from being a taboo, is a source of pride for the side that amasses the most. It is also an essential windfall: 2024 promises to be the most expensive electoral cycle in the country’s history.
The two candidates have been engaged in this war for millions for months, regularly sharing laudatory press releases on the state of their finances.
This competition of muscles accelerated with the holding at the end of March of a large reception in New York, during which Democratic President Joe Biden raised 25 million dollars, “a record” according to his campaign team.
But on Saturday, that of his tempestuous rival Donald Trump announced a figure twice as high: more than $50.5 million, collected during the fundraising evening in Palm Beach, not far from Mar-a-Lago, the luxurious residence of the Republican candidate.
An amount which makes that collected by Joe Biden in New York “desperate”, in comparison, quipped Donald Trump’s campaign team.
“The evening was incredible before it even started, because people wanted to contribute to a cause, to make America great again. And that’s what happened,” the former Republican president said on Saturday.
The event was organized by billionaire John Paulson, one of the few financiers to have profited from the 2008-2009 financial crisis thanks to his bets on the collapse of the real estate market. It made it possible, according to him, “to raise the highest amount in one go in the history” of politics.
$1,107,082
Guests included businessman Robert Bigelow, who made his fortune in the hotel business before running an aerospace research company, and John Catsimatidis, owner of a major grocery store chain.
Both men are known to be major donors to the Republican Party.
Some former rivals of Donald Trump in the Republican primaries were also on the list: Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy, Doug Burgum… These men have since completely embraced the septuagenarian’s candidacy and hope to find a place in a hypothetical Trump 2.0 administration.
According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump’s seat at the table will be billed… 814,600 US dollars (C$1,107,082 million)
These crazy sums are used to finance candidates’ travel, to pay their teams, to commission surveys or, and perhaps above all, to pay for television advertisements.
Joe Biden, who likes to portray himself as a hero of the middle class, was quick to criticize the event organized by his Republican opponent in a post on social networks on Saturday.
“Donald Trump is organizing a fundraiser with a group of billionaires from the world of finance, who want to slash Social Security and Medicare while offering themselves tax cuts,” he said. he accuses.
The Democrat currently has better campaign coffers than Donald Trump, criminally charged four times, who spends part of the money collected from his supporters on legal fees.
His team relishes this financial advantage, even calling out “broke Don” in a recent email about the billionaire, himself a big fan of cruel nicknames.
