According to federal records that were obtained by Politico, President Donald Trump has already raised millions of dollars towards his re-election effort in 2020. The records were filed by the Trump campaign with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
How much money has he raised?
President Donald Trump's re-election campaign has already raised a total of $13.2 million dollars.
All of this money has been collected by three different Trump committees, Donald J. Trump for President, Trump Make America Great Again Committee and Trump Victory. Of the $13.2 million raised, around 80 percent of it was obtained through small, online donations given to the committees.
A lot of the small, online donations were from the same people that donated to Trump during the 2016 Presidential Election. The FEC filing also suggests that merchandise sales played a large part in raising money, with much of it coming from selling hats, mugs, T-shirts and stickers during Trump's inauguration and early presidency.
The committees currently have almost $16 million in the bank.
The three committees have already spent at least $9 million on various activities. The FEC filing says that they spent over $4.7 million on various Trump merchandise that is sold to raise money. On the fundraising side, around $2.7 million was spent on telemarketing, data and other activities. $1.6 million has gone to the web design and digital media company that Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign digital director, runs.
Trump's staff and re-election payments
The three committees are also paying a staff of twenty people for Trump's re-election campaign. This is an unusually large staff size to have, as any re-election campaign would not seriously kick off until about three years from now.
According to the FEC filing, for his role in the re-election campaign the aforementioned Brad Parscale got paid $15,000 separate from his company. John Pence, who is the vice president's nephew, is the deputy executive director and got paid $40,000. Michael Glassner, who is overseeing the operation and was an official in the 2016 campaign, has been paid $77,000 so far.
The committees have also spent $458,000 at various Trump companies. Steve Bannon's firm, Bannon Strategic Advisers, received a payment of $28,000 at the end of January. Dan Scavino's (the White House social media director) firm (Scavino and Associates) got paid $14,500 in early February.