More than $42 million has been raised since January for the campaign efforts of US President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC).
The money was solicited through two joint fundraising committees and the RNC, The Washington Post reported Friday, citing Federal Election Commission filings and Republican Party officials.
Over 250,000 contributors have given online to either Trump’s campaign or to the RNC this year, GOP sources told the Post. Most of the contributions came from small donors who gave less than $200 in response to email solicitations, according to those sources.
The $42 million is more than twice the amount raised for former President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) following the 2008 presidential election.
During the same period in 2009, Obama and the DNC raised $15.8 million. Unlike Obama, Trump has not stopped fundraising since his election victory last November.
Emails advertising Trump-branded merchandise and offering donors the chance to win a trip to Washington for his inauguration have helped him collect nearly $9 million for a 2020 reelection campaign.
The fundraising efforts come as US Senator and former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has predicted that Trump won’t be elected into the White House for a second term.
Speaking to The Associated Press on Wednesday, Sanders based his argument on Trump’s low job approval ratings since his inauguration on January 20.
“In terms of the first three months in office, Donald Trump is the least popular president in the history of polling,” the senator told the AP.
Earlier in April, a Quinnipiac University survey showed that only 35 percent of Americans approved of the job Trump was doing, while 57 percent disapproved.
Trump was one of the most unpopular candidates ever to get elected president. His main opponent in the 2016 presidential election race, Hillary Clinton, also had high unfavorable ratings.
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/6104