Trump policies boon to super rich. So where are 7-figure cheques?

Only a fraction of the president's top donors have given as much to his re-election effort

Timothy Mellon, reclusive heir to a Pittsburgh banking fortune, was such an unknown figure among Republican operatives that they needed to Google his name when he reached out in 2018 to offer his help in the midterm elections. The staff quickly discovered this was no middling donor: Mellon planned to give $10 million — with the suggestion that he wanted to give more.
 

This April, Mellon gave another $10 million, this time to US President Donald Trump’s super PAC, America First Action, the only Trump-endorsed fund-raising group permitted to collect unlimited contributions. The donation transformed Mellon into Trump’s biggest political benefactor of 2020.
 

The fact that an outsider has emerged as one of the few supporters willing to be so generous illustrates a surprising problem for Trump: his struggle to attract and retain a reliable stable of people willing to write seven-figure checks.
 

Trump is hardly lacking for cash; he has received huge numbers of small donations online from a fervent grass-roots base, and he raised a jaw-dropping $165 million in July for his campaign and the two fund-raising committees that he shares with the Republican National Committee.
 

But his sagging popularity, driven by his erratic and divisive behaviour during the coronavirus crisis, has prompted some of the wealthiest Republicans to delay, divert or diminish their giving, just as Joseph R Biden Jr has begun to tap a rich vein of Wall Street and Silicon Valley support, party operatives said.
 

Thus far, only six of top 38 donors to Trump-related super PACs in 2016 and 2018 have donated to America First for the president’s re-election, according to New York Times. In 2016, that group — those giving at least $500,000 — shelled out $71 million to four major Trump-backing super PACs, which America First was created to replace during the 2020 cycle. In contrast, with less than three months to go until the 2020 election, America First has raised only $35 million from those offering $500,000 or more.
 

Prospective contributors have responded to solicitations by expressing concern that Trump has not articulated a clear vision for the next four years. While many in Trump’s orbit have been encouraged by an uptick in internal polling — and see Biden as a weak Democratic nominee — some of the party’s top donors remain sceptical about their own candidate’s prospects.
 

Some — including Trump’s top 2016 contributor, Sheldon Adelson — have begun discussing the possibility of putting their cash into other fund-raising groups, ones not blessed by Trump or run by his team. The motive would be to promote a broader, more positive Republican message on the economy to offset the Trump campaign’s focus on negative, anti-Biden attacks.

The PAC’s problems stand in contrast to the Republican Party’s Senate fund-raising groups, which have been attracting a historic crop of big contributors hoping to hold onto the Senate even if Trump loses. Bernie Marcus, a founder of Home Depot, has given nothing to the super PAC after shelling out $7 million in 2016 and $100,000 in 2018. While he and his wife have made limited donations to support Trump’s re-election this year, they have put millions toward a super PAC supporting Senate Republicans.

©2020 The New York Times