Trump and R.N.C. Raised $105 Million in 2nd Quarter, Outdoing Obama

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee on Tuesday said they had raised $105 million in the second quarter of this year, dwarfing what President Barack Obama raised in the equivalent period during his re-election campaign.

The campaign and the R.N.C. said they had a combined $100 million in cash on hand, and that they had raised more money online in the second quarter than in the first half of 2018. The staggering total figure can be plowed into television and digital advertising, get-out-the-vote efforts and other activities related to the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump and his committees raised $54 million, they said, and the R.N.C. raised $51 million. The campaign officials did not say how many individual donors had contributed, or how many gave money in increments of $200 or less. The official report, which will include spending, will be filed with the Federal Election Commission on July 15.

Mr. Trump has not sought to restrict who can give money to his campaign.

The president’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, called it a “massive fund-raising success” based on enthusiasm for Mr. Trump’s record, which he said no Democratic candidate could match.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the R.N.C., said the fund-raising allowed the committee to “identify troves of new supporters online and continue investing in our unprecedented field program.”

For a president who values large numbers and has told aides that he wants record-breaking fund-raising reports, the figures are expected to be particularly rewarding.

And the amount of money that was both raised and stored away will be daunting for Mr. Trump’s eventual challenger, underscoring the benefits of incumbency.

In 2011, during the same period, Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign raised $47 million, and the Democratic National Committee brought in $38 million, Jim Messina, the Obama campaign manager, said at the time.

Mr. Trump’s fund-raising haul is a testament to the more professional operation that his campaign has been running, primarily out of Arlington, Va. In 2016, Mr. Trump poured millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign. But he also raised a considerable amount from small donors online.

This time around, as president, he also has command of the party’s donor base in a way he never did in 2016. And Ms. McDaniel, the Republican National Committee chairwoman, is known as an aggressive fund-raiser.

The Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., announced on Monday that he had raised $24.8 million in the second quarter, which was seen as a stunning number for a candidate who was relatively unknown six months ago.

Mr. Buttigieg has impressed a number of the party’s more traditional donors, enhancing his fund-raising.

Other campaigns in the large Democratic field have yet to announce fund-raising for the quarter, although some saw an increase after the first primary debate, which was held over two nights in Miami last week.

Senator Kamala Harris, the California Democrat, said she had raised $2 million in the 24 hours after her appearance in the debate, during which she confronted the front-runner, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., head-on over his past statements praising segregationist senators.

Aides to Mr. Biden, whose debate performance was widely criticized, said he had also seen a fund-raising bump in the hours after the event, but they did not release a number.



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