Former President Donald Trump’s criminal indictment helped jolt his fundraising. GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley faces questions about her campaign math. Embattled New York Rep. George Santos refunded more contributions than he took in. And some – but not all – of the Democratic Party’s most vulnerable Senate incumbents have stepped up their fundraising ahead of tough 2024 election fights.
Here’s a look at a few takeaways from new first-quarter campaign filings covering the first three months of 2023:
Trump raised about $14.4 million for his main campaign committee in the first quarter of this year – with donations spiking at the end of March as news broke of his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury.
The new filings suggest that the former president’s legal troubles have helped him politically and financially as he makes a third bid for the White House. But the amount only captures the start of what the campaign said was a fundraising surge that continued into the beginning of the second quarter.
Even so, Trump’s first-quarter haul lagged behind the pace he had set in earlier campaigns.
Earlier this month, Haley;s campaign publicized what it boasted as a strong haul for her 2024 presidential bid: The former South Carolina governor had raised “more than $11 million in just six weeks,” according to a campaign release.
But official filings with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday night show that the campaign appears to have double-counted money routed among Haley’s fundraising committees, overstating the topline figure.
The three committees connected to Haley raised a total of $8.3 million – still a sizable showing for a first-time presidential candidate but not the figure publicly touted by the former UN ambassador’s campaign.
Fundraising serves as one benchmark of support…
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