Trump 2020

President’s re-election campaign outraising Democratic Party

The president already has a $100 million fundraising haul for his re-election campaign.

WASHINGTON — As Democrats get organized for the 2020 election, one major obstacle is becoming starkly clear: President Donald Trump’s $100 million head start.

Trump, who began raising money for his re-election campaign shortly after winning the presidency, disclosed Monday that his campaign and affiliated committees have raised at least $106 million — an enormous sum that exceeds what any of his predecessors amassed so early in their presidencies.

More than half of the money the committees raised in the most recent fundraising quarter came from individual supporters, who are giving in amounts of $200 or less. These supporters also are turning up at Trump-headlined rallies, where their information is being pulled into the Republican National Committee’s expanding voter database.

The party is connecting with 1 million voters per day and forging an army of volunteers — with a test run of this machine underway in the form of the November midterm election.

The expansive effort comes as Democrats’ hopes for the presidency are just coming into focus. The 2020 race is expected to begin almost immediately a fter the midterm election, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and former Vice President Joe Biden are among the high-profile Democrats who have recently raised millions of dollars and traveled around the country to support midterm candidates.

But the Trump machine has been churning for nearly two years — unheard of before this president, as his predecessors typically waited until after midterm elections to focus on their re-election campaigns.

“If the Trump campaign and RNC keep doing what they’re doing, they’re going to amass a huge fundraising and grassroots network. By the time the conventions come around, they’re going to be rolling down the campaign trail with a well-oiled, fully-weaponized battle station,” said GOP strategist Scott Jennings, who advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Together with the RNC, Trump’s campaign committee and joint fundraising committees have raised more than $337 million and stockpiled at least $88 million of it in cash.

Democrats acknowledge that Trump has a head start in finetuning the campaign’s data and online fundraising capabilities. The president is a top political advertiser on Facebook and Google, and the RNC is continuing to improve the data and email lists that Trump’s 2020 campaign will inherit.

“It is really impressive, the money and the operation that the Trump folks are putting together,” said Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist. As soon as the midterm election is over, he said, Democrats “had better get about the business of re-arming for the next battle.”

The Democratic National Committee, struggling to rebuild after 2016, effectively has no cash on hand and remains in debt.