Donald Trump, RNC Raised $51 Million in June

Donald Trump’s campaign on Wednesday announced it raised $51 million since late May, a sign that his first major fundraising foray has proved moderately successful.

The bulk of the contributions – more than $26 million – came through fundraising emails, campaign officials announced. Trump lent his campaign nearly $50 million during the primary and said he will forgive those loans and convert them to a personal campaign contribution.

Trump, who largely self-financed his bid to win the Republican primary, is racing to build a finance operation to catch up to Democrat Hillary Clinton, who raised about $68.5 million last month for her campaign and Democratic Party committees.

“We just started our fundraising efforts in the last week of May and we are extremely pleased with the broad-based support in the last five weeks for the Trump Campaign and Trump Victory”, said Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s finance chairman. Donors can give up to $450,000 to the joint fundraising committees, while the official campaign can only accept checks of up to $2,700.

Team Trump said that more than 400,000 supporters contributed, with almost all – 94% – giving less than $200.

In its self-congratulatory news release on the totals, the Trump campaign claimed they “show the enthusiastic movement the campaign has created”.

The campaign hosted 22 fundraising events for Trump Victory – another joint fundraising committee with the RNC that shares funds with 11 state party committees – during the last week of May and the month of June, which yielded $25 million. “The campaign very much appreciates the broad support”, the campaign said in a statement.

The GOP nominee’s fundraising operation also lags behind that of his predecessor, Mitt Romney, who raised $106 million in June 2012 for the campaign and joint committees, surpassing President Obama’s monthly total at that time.

Later Wednesday afternoon, Trump appealed to his Twitter followers for donations, tweeting, “To all of my twitter followers, please contribute whatever you can to the campaign”. On its last report to the Federal Election Commission, the Trump campaign reported holding just $1.89 million as of May 31 – versus $42.5 million reported by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Clinton and the DNC, by comparison, pulled in about $28 million in May.

This was the first full month that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee spent raising money from donors after self-funding his primary campaign.

It’s not clear whether Trump can match Clinton’s fundraising – or whether he needs to – given his ability to command attention and votes with little traditional television advertising.