For a number of hours on Saturday night, drivers on a usually scenic stretch of Palm Seaside, Fla., had their views of the coast obscured by a line of luxurious automobiles whose homeowners had been mingling inside a mansion throughout the street.
The shoreline-blocking Vary Rovers, Aston Martins and Bentleys hinted on the deep-pocketed donors attending a fund-raising dinner for former President Donald J. Trump’s presidential marketing campaign, which it and the Republican Nationwide Committee stated had raised greater than $50.5 million.
The occasion, hosted by the billionaire John Paulson at his residence, adopted a concerted push by the Trump marketing campaign to deal with a longstanding monetary disparity with President Biden and Democrats as each events gear up for the final election.
The reported whole, which can’t be independently verified forward of marketing campaign finance filings within the coming months, is almost double the $26 million that President Biden’s marketing campaign stated it raised final month at a celebrity-studded occasion at Radio Metropolis Music Corridor in New York Metropolis.
Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, senior advisers to the previous president who’re successfully his marketing campaign managers, stated in a press release that the entire made it “clearer than ever that we now have the message, the operation and the cash to propel President Trump to victory on November 5.”
Mr. Trump’s occasion, simply down the street from his residence at Mar-a-Lago, was in some methods a much less flashy affair than its Democratic antecedent, one which traded Hollywood star energy and New York Metropolis power for a hotter clime, an abundance of palm timber and the manicured lawns typical of an island refuge for the moneyed elite.
However expectations forward of the dinner had been excessive, with Mr. Paulson and Trump marketing campaign advisers vowing to outdo the Biden occasion. An invite obtained by The New York Occasions advised a contribution of $814,600 or the comparatively extra modest $250,000.
The cash raised, based on the invitation, shall be directed to the Trump 47 Committee, a shared fund-raising settlement among the many Trump marketing campaign, the Republican Nationwide Committee and roughly 40 state events. Such joint accounts can soak up checks of as a lot as $814,600.
Mr. Trump, who has lengthy had a penchant for superlatives, had predicted on his social media website, Reality Social, that the dinner could be the “greatest night time in Fund Elevating of ALL TIME!!!”
The previous president arrived shortly earlier than 7 p.m. together with his spouse, Melania Trump, who has made sparse appearances at political occasions throughout her husband’s third presidential marketing campaign. “This has been some unimaginable night earlier than it even begins,” Mr. Trump stated earlier than posing for a photograph with Mr. Paulson and coming into the home.
Round 100 individuals had been anticipated to attend the dinner, with various billionaires on the visitor listing.
Among the many occasion’s co-chairs had been acquainted megadonors and Trump allies, together with Rebekah Mercer, a significant donor to Mr. Trump in 2016; Linda McMahon, a former Trump cupboard official; and Robert Bigelow, who backed Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida within the Republican major however in February donated $5 million to Mr. Trump’s tremendous PAC.
Not all of those that wrote checks opted to attend. John Catsimatidis, a New York grocery retailer chain proprietor with a protracted historical past with Mr. Trump, was a co-chair of the occasion however stated different commitments stored him from being current.
Beneath the shared fund-raising settlement, the primary $6,600 of any contribution will go to Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign. The subsequent $5,000 will go to his Save America PAC, the political account he has used to pay his authorized payments. (That quantity is the utmost contribution allowed to Save America beneath federal guidelines.) The R.N.C. will get the subsequent $413,000, after which will come dozens of state events.
Mr. Trump and his workforce have successfully taken over the R.N.C., putting in new management, pushing via layoffs and restructuring the nationwide occasion’s operations to align it extra intently with the marketing campaign.
Fund-raising has been a significant focus of the overhaul, significantly as Mr. Biden and Democrats have banked money and constructed a major monetary benefit over the past a number of months.
The Biden marketing campaign stated earlier on Saturday that it, the Democratic Get together and affiliated committees had raised greater than $90 million in March, and that collectively that they had $192 million available going into April. The Trump marketing campaign stated it and the Republican Nationwide Committee had raised $65.6 million in March, the previous president’s finest fund-raising month to date, and that they, together with their shared accounts, had $93.1 million available.
Mr. Biden’s marketing campaign supervisor, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, stated in a press release that the Democratic fund-raising numbers stood in “stark distinction to Trump’s cash-strapped operation.”
Mr. Biden’s totals had been helped partly by the glamorous occasion in entrance of 5,000 donors on the storied Radio Metropolis Music Corridor. Mr. Biden and two of his Democratic predecessors, former Presidents Barack Obama and Invoice Clinton, had been interviewed by the late-night host and comic Stephen Colbert.
Quite a lot of musical visitors, together with Queen Latifah, Lizzo and Lea Michele, entertained the gang.
The particular visitors billed on the invitation for the Trump fund-raiser had been three of his former major rivals who’ve since turn into marketing campaign surrogates and joined him on the path: Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Vivek Ramaswamy, the tech entrepreneur.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
