ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – “Trump needs you,” pleaded a fundraising email.
“President Trump’s estate is in your hands,” argued another.
Others were promoting “Miss Me Yet?” T-shirts with Donald Trump’s smiling face.
While some Republicans struggle with how fiercely to embrace the former president, the organizations tasked with raising money for the party are going all-in. next year’s midterm elections, when the GOP hopes to regain control of at least one chamber of Congress.
But there is a problem: Trump himself. In his first speech since leaving office, the former president encouraged loyalists to give directly to him, essentially bypassing the traditional groups that raise money for GOP candidates.
“There is only one way to contribute to our efforts to elect ‘America First’ Republican Conservatives and in turn make America great again,” Trump said Sunday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida. “And that’s through Save America PAC and donaldjtrump.com.”
The comment was especially notable because Trump generally does not like asking for money in person. It boils down to the latest salvo in the fight to shape the future of the GOP, with Trump making it clear that he is not loyal to the party’s traditional fundraising operation as he tries to consolidate power.
That could help him add to an already impressive war chest, which would help him influence the party. Save America has more than $ 80 million in cash on hand, including $ 3 million raised after the CPAC speech, according to a person familiar with the total.
Some of that money could help Trump settle bills with sitting members of Congress who crossed him. In his Sunday address, Trump read the names of every Republican who voted against him and called for their defeat. He has already endorsed a Republican challenger to Ohio GOP Representative Anthony Gonzalez, who voted to impeach Trump for the uprising at the Capitol.
“Trump’s call to give directly to him shows that the normal organs of the party … will have to fight for relevance in the 2022 cycle,” said Dan Eberhart, a longtime Republican donor who has given large sums of money to all three. as well as to the Trump campaign.
Bill Palatucci, a New Jersey RNC member, called Trump’s comments “unwelcome” and “counterproductive” and expressed concern that the GOP would suffer further losses, such as the January Senate elections, if they do not cooperate.
“Listen, it is a free country. Anyone can form a federal PAC or a super PAC and there is always a lot of competition for dollars. But crossing the line there is therefore to tell people not to give to the important committees of the national party, ”said Palatucci. “The former president must be willing to look beyond his self-interest.”
The RNC and spokesmen for the House and Senate campaign committees declined to comment. But others tried to downplay the apparent tensions. For example, they noted that Trump will be speaking at the RNC’s spring retreat in Palm Beach in April – a major source of fundraising.
And Trump has been telling party chairman Ronna McDaniel in recent days that he wants to continue raising money for the RNC, according to a person briefed on the conversation who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to make private conversations public.
Before Trump’s team earned its fundraising campaign on Sunday, it quietly updated its fundraising requests. They turned his Save America leadership PAC into an entity that can support other candidates as well, and turned his main campaign committee Donald J. Trump for President into Make America Great Again, or MAGAPac. Money raised through Trump’s website now goes to Save America JFC, a joint fundraising deal between the two.
Although Trump left office as a highly unpopular figure, he continues to hold a strong appeal to small grassroots backers, a reality that has been abundantly highlighted in fundraising over the past week.
Over the course of an hour last Thursday, the RNC, both the campaign committees of the GOP Congress and the Republican State Leadership Committee, which seeks to elect Republicans to the state office, sent supporters with urgent calls for fundraising, including urgent references to Trump, shot into the sky.
And the National Republican Senatorial Committee warned this week that limited edition T-shirts featuring Trump were nearly sold out.
Regardless of Trump’s next move, the GOP is unlikely to remove him from his sales pitch anytime soon.
“Our digital fundraising strategy is simple: raise as much money as possible,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for the RSLC.