White House moneymen: Inside the Trump-DeSantis war for donors in 2024
Gabe Kaminsky
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Top campaign donors in 2016 and 2020 to former President Donald Trump have continued to boost Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) as he mulls a White House bid, raising questions as to where high-powered Republican moneymen will plant their flags in the 2024 presidential election.
Trump has escalated his verbal attacks in the last several months against DeSantis, notably calling him “Meatball Ron” and sending a memo in early April to donors of the governor that said he had “collapsing numbers” and would fare worse than himself in a head-to-head matchup against President Joe Biden. There are a handful of billionaires and businessmen who, in the past, backed Trump and have lately supported the Florida governor, setting the stage for a campaign finance battle on the national stage that could help tip the GOP presidential primary.
MEET THE MONEYMEN BEHIND RON DESANTIS AS THE GOVERNOR MULLS TAKING ON TRUMP IN 2024
“In a still-developing presidential field, major donor fundraising is an early signal about momentum and staying power,” Zach Hunter, a senior Republican strategist and former vice president of the Congressional Leadership Fund and American Action Network, told the Washington Examiner. “If DeSantis aims to be seen as the only viable Trump alternative, massive fundraising hauls for him and his outside allies are one of the clearest ways to claim that mantle.”
Hunter added that 2024 voters do not have to make up their minds “anytime soon,” but major donors “can begin laying the groundwork for their preferred candidate.”
Trump holds a 52.4% to 23.4% lead over DeSantis in the 2024 primary contest, with former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley coming in at 3.9%, former Arkansas GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson at 1%, and entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy at 1.4%, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who unveiled a presidential exploratory committee in mid-April, polls at 1.6%, while former Vice President Mike Pence, who is mulling a bid, polls at 4.3%, according to RealClearPolitics.
Major 2024 donor news came last week when real estate mogul Robert Bigelow, who contributed $10 million to the state political action committee for DeSantis in July 2022, announced he has already poured $20 million into Never Back Down. The pro-DeSantis super PAC is led by ex-Trump Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli and is staffed by the likes of ex-Trump 2020 campaign spokespeople Erin Perrine and Matt Wolking.
Bigelow was behind Trump up until the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in 2021, he told Time. He has given to a multitude of GOP entities with Trump affiliations, including a super PAC that supported failed Trump-endorsed Republican Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker and another PAC affiliated with Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), a Trump-endorsed candidate in 2022, according to campaign finance disclosures.
“President Trump is dominating in poll after poll, both nationally and statewide, crushing the primary and general fields,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, told the Washington Examiner when asked whether money will decide the race or if Trump’s appeal to voters will be sufficient. “That is why congressional members, statewide officials, local leaders, and grassroots activists have endorsed the president — because they know he is the only one who can win in 2024. There is no other candidate in the race who has even come close to putting out a bold, forward-looking policy agenda that President Trump has.”
Still, Bigelow’s lurch toward DeSantis is a snippet of the donor rift transpiring among wealthy Republicans, who have conflicting visions of which candidate has the best chance of knocking Biden out of office. Citadel CEO and hedge fund manager billionaire Ken Griffin, who in 2018 donated $1 million to the pro-Trump PAC Future45, has said he “would love to see” DeSantis “run.” In April 2021, Griffin steered $5 million to the governor’s state committee, followed by the $5.75 million he donated to him in 2018, disclosures show.
However, Griffin is still evaluating the GOP primary and could also donate to other candidates, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
Don Tapia, the U.S. ambassador to Jamaica under Trump, is one prior donor to the former president who is jumping ship for DeSantis. He took aim in February at Trump’s rhetoric and “name-calling” and endorsed DeSantis in 2024. Some deep-pocketed donors who have already said they will not support Trump in 2024 include Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, businessman Andy Sabin, and philanthropist Ronald Lauder.
Schwarzman donated $3 million to the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action Inc. in 2020, filings show. Lauder and Sabin, who have donated to the DeSantis state campaign since 2018, contributed over $220,000 combined between 2019 and 2020 to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee, after prior donations to boost the former president, according to filings.
On the other hand, DeSantis has been losing support among certain donors over his retaliation against Disney for slamming the governor’s Parental Rights in Education Act, which seeks to restrict gender-based curricula in Florida schools and has been labeled by Democrats as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Billionaires, like the Hungarian-born Chairman Thomas Peterffy of the financial services firm Interactive Brokers, said in April that he and “his friends” will move money away from DeSantis over his big government policies.
Between January and March, Trump’s campaign hauled in over $14.4 million in mostly small-dollar donations, disclosures show. His joint fundraising committee will not release figures until July but has raked in at least $4.4 million, a source familiar with the matter told Politico in mid-April.
That DeSantis is harvesting big-name donors won’t define the primary race, a senior and longtime Trumpworld operative told the Washington Examiner, pointing to the fact that Trump swept the GOP field in 2016 while pulling in far less money than the likes of ex-Florida GOP Sen. Jeb Bush or Ben Carson — who went on to become Trump’s secretary of housing and urban development.
“The difference this time around is Trump’s small-dollar donor base can compete with DeSantis’s big-dollar base,” the operative, who is not authorized to speak publicly, said. “One thing I’ve learned in politics is that money is very rarely determinative. As long as you have enough money, you don’t need to have the most money.”
“He’s losing more donors than he’s winning over,” the source, referring to DeSantis, added. “I know there are a lot of others who haven’t gone public that have put on hold their giving. So, it’s not like he’s winning over donors left and right.”
Never Back Down, the super PAC trying to will DeSantis to the presidency, told the Washington Examiner that Trump’s “fundraising abilities have deteriorated significantly since 2020, citing an NBC News article labeling Trump’s fundraising “flat” on April 15. Never Back Down notably confirmed Saturday that Adam Laxalt, the former Nevada attorney general who has long supported Trump, will be its chairman.
“He used to be a force in the Republican Party, and now he’s a fundraising whisper,” Perrine said of Trump.
While Trump may be losing support among certain wealthy businessmen, he leads his GOP opponents in endorsements. Dozens of federal Republican lawmakers are behind Trump, including Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), and Bill Hagerty (R-TN), as well as Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN), Byron Donalds (R-FL), Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), and Diana Harshbarger (R-TN).
Meanwhile, the pro-Trump 2024 super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. pocketed $1.8 million combined between October and November 2022 from Dallas banker Andy Beal, recycling mogul Anthony Lomangino, and Timothy Mellon, chairman of the Florida-based rail transport corporation Pan Am Systems, campaign finance disclosures show.
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Mellon previously donated $20 million combined in April 2020 and September 2020 to America First Action Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC that lists its chairwoman as Linda McMahon, Trump’s ex-administrator of the Small Business Administration who was a major Trump contributor in the past and is married to ex-WWE head Vince McMahon.
Linda McMahon did not return a message asking whom she will support in 2024.