Trump had the largest online fundraiser right after Haley, raising nine times as much money as she did.
Now the only major candidates left in the Republican primary are Haley and Trump. And fundraising data from the campaign and Republican online donation platform WinRed submitted to the Federal Election Commission this week and analyzed by POLITICO highlights the former president enjoying a significant advantage thanks to his passionate base. Haley is recruiting new, small donors to her campaign. But she has never reached a level where she can compete with the small army invested in Trump.
Trump's strongest fundraising years came after his legal troubles, and those earnings are massive.
Fundraising figures show how closely Trump's legal troubles are intertwined with his presidential campaign.
Trump has used each indictment as a major fundraising opportunity for his 2024 campaign and an opportunity to hammer home his claims that he is being unfairly targeted by the justice system. And his supporters responded.
Mugshot produced Trump's best online fundraising day of the year in terms of dollars raised and more than 65,000 unique contributors. Trump's six biggest fundraising days of the year were around the time of the mug shots or the first indictments in New York in early April.
The surge in fundraising surrounding Trump's indictment was partly intentional.
When news broke that a Manhattan grand jury had first indicted Trump on charges of paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election, Trump's team sent out a fundraising email. And while Republicans rushed to defend the former president, Trump's team organized a cable news spectacle of his indictment in New York that helped draw more attention and donations. The timing of the first indictment also coincided with the campaign's end-of-quarter fundraising drive.
“We are living through the darkest time in American history,” the Trump Save America joint fundraising committee said in an email at the time. “Please make a contribution of any amount to protect our movement from the never-ending witch hunts and help us win the White House in 2024. “You can have 1,500% impact.”
His campaign also utilized visual elements from each event. The Trump campaign sent out an email showing T-shirts with a fake mugshot that read “Not Guilty” to appeal to supporters just before he filed his appeal in New York in April. There were no mug shots in New York. But there was a place like that in Atlanta. And the image of Trump glaring at the camera brought record funding to the Trump campaign in 24 hours, during which he raised $4.18 million.
For Haley, a strong debate performance led to new fundraising.
Haley's strong debate performance pushed her out by single digits in early state polls.
They also invested more money into her campaign.
Haley received more than $468,000 through WinRed in a top online fundraiser, the day after she took the stage for the first presidential debate. The debates gave her fundraising a major boost, raising more money after the third and fourth Republican primary debates than she did the day she launched her campaign.
It wasn't all organic profits that were driving cash flow. Haley's campaign promoted her debate performance through fundraising emails and text messages on each fight night and the day after.
The subject line of the Aug. 24 fundraising email read: “This message is on fire.” It included footage of Haley speaking during her debate and asking readers to “hurry up and donate” to amplify her message.
Ultimately, Haley's tongue-twisters about Vivek Ramaswamy on the debate stage and her foreign policy flexibility toward Ukraine and Israel were far more financially beneficial to her campaign than perhaps her biggest campaign trail coup: winning the endorsement of New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu. It has been proven to be beneficial. Her nod from the popular Republican governor gave Haley a surge in polls in the state and helped narrow her field.
But Haley raised about $168,000 online the day Sununu endorsed her. She raised nearly $380,000 just six days ago, on the day of the fourth Republican debate in Tuscaloosa.
And as Haley's popularity rose in and out of the polls, she surpassed Trump in one important fundraising metric. She began to have more donors giving to her campaign for the first time than to Trump on a regular basis.
Trump has built a firewall of returning donors who will continue to power his campaign.
Although Haley began attracting new donors at a faster rate than Trump (a shift that occurred in the final two months of the year), Trump continued to raise significantly more money than he did. And he had far more daily donors overall.
His strength is people who donate again – people who previously donated to his campaigns, either because they set up automatic recurring donations or because they actively chose to send more money.
By the end of the year, donors who had previously donated to the Trump campaign accounted for more than 90% of WinRed's daily donations. On most days, these returning donors gave a total of more than $100,000.
A large base of loyal donors gives Trump a critical base of support that continues to fill his campaign coffers.
Returning donors helped Trump, especially at a time when donations had not rebounded significantly due to new legal challenges, such as a Colorado court's decision to temporarily exclude him from the Republican primary ballot in late December.
And that's a source of support for Trump, likely solidifying his financial advantage as the year continues.