President Trump’s reelection campaign said Thursday it raised $46 million during the final three months of 2019, a best-ever haul that aides credited to blowback against House Democrats’ impeachment.
The campaign starts the year flush with cash as potential Democratic rivals announced their fourth-quarter figures ahead of the Iowa caucuses next month.
The Trump campaign raised $41 million during the third quarter of 2019, as Democrats ramped up their probe of the president’s interactions with Ukraine. But then it raked in even more cash, even as witnesses delivered damning Capitol Hill testimony and the House voted to impeach Mr. Trump.
“It only shows the strength and resilience of his support. That’s not likely to change moving forward,” said G. Terry Madonna, a politics professor at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania.
Campaign manager Brad Parscale said the impressive fundraising is a “testament” to Mr. Trump’s record and appeal despite Democratic probes.
“Democrats and the media have been in a sham impeachment frenzy and the president’s campaign only got bigger and stronger with our best fundraising quarter this cycle,” he said. “The president’s war chest and grassroots army make his re-election campaign an unstoppable juggernaut.”
The Trump campaign began 2019 with $19.3 million on hand. It raised $143 million and banked $83.4 million, leaving it with almost $103 million on hand.
The amount compares favorably with the $81.8 million President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign had on hand at the start of 2012, according to Reuters.
Thursday’s announcement reflected money raised by the Trump campaign alone and doesn’t include funds from the Republican National Committee or any authorized joint fundraising committees.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has boasted about the amounts pouring into her organization and, like Mr. Parscale, says impeachment is a boon to fundraising. She recently said the RNC added 600,000 new small online donors after the start of the impeachment probe.
“You don’t see that type of growth. It means people are angry, they are passionate, they know the economy is doing well, they know this president is fighting for them and they’re getting out their pocketbook and saying — we want to reelect President Trump and Congress does not get to take away our vote,” she told Fox Business Network a few days before Christmas.
Democrats battling to take on Mr. Trump in November are starting to release their fundraising numbers.
Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont raised more than $34.5 million in the fourth quarter, besting fellow frontrunner former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, who hauled in around $23 million.
Mr. Sanders, who also ran in 2016, said his haul included 40,000 new donors and $18 million in December alone, making it his best month of the campaign.
Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, raised $24.7 million and Andrew Yang, a tech entrepreneur, raised more than $16.5 million.
The Democratic National Committee said it’s unfazed by Mr. Trump’s fundraising prowess. It said there is still more money on the Democratic side.
“We’re seeing unprecedented enthusiasm for the Democratic Party, with the handful of Democratic candidates who have already announced their fundraising numbers having outraised the sitting incumbent president by tens of millions of dollars,” DNC spokesman Daniel Wessel said.
“The DNC made smart investments that led us to victories in 2017, 2018 and 2019, and is hard at work building the infrastructure necessary to do the same in 2020.”
None of the Democratic contenders publicly released their cash-on-hand totals, which will be part of the year-end fundraising reports they’ll have to disclose to the Federal Election Commission later this month.
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