The candidate for the 2024 US presidential election is taking advantage of his recent indictments to mobilize his troops and encourage them to donate to his campaign.
“Our republic is hanging by a thread and America needs you now.” After facing a new indictment (the fourth in less than a year) on Monday for trying to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, Donald Trump sent an email to his supporters to call on them to support him financially, reports the British daily The Daily Mail.
A practice which the billionaire has become accustomed to and which aims not only to pay his legal costs but also to ensure him a precious windfall as part of his campaign for the 2024 election, in a country where the parties spend several billion dollars to the occasion of each presidential election.
“Thank you for making a contribution to show that you will never abandon our country to TYRANNY, while the Deep State [appellation complotiste des forces qui dirigeraient secrètement les Etats-Unis, NDLR] tries to THROW me in prison for life”, developed the amateur of the messages in capital letters in his email, sent around 3am.
Four million dollars in 24 hours
Since his first indictment in the spring in New York, the tempestuous septuagenarian has flooded his supporters with text messages and emails of this type, referring to a site where his supporters can donate between 24 and more than 23,000 dollars, and even renew this contribution every month.
Moreover, the former president uses and abuses an incendiary lexicon. He claims that the four cases in which he has been charged are “witch hunts” and that Democratic President Joe Biden is a “creep” at the head of a “fake dictatorship”, which is trying to “eliminate his main political adversary.
The result is final: the Republican campaign team announced that it had raised more than 4 million dollars in 24 hours after its first indictment, for questionable payments to an actress in pornographic films. He then boasted of having collected nearly 7 million dollars just after his second indictment, for his management deemed negligent of state secrets.
Illustration of the influence that Donald Trump retains on his base, thousands of Americans respond to his calls for donations. The war chest and the mobilization of his supporters are all the more precious since the candidate’s fundraising campaigns before his indictments had not been very successful. With each new investigation, the Republican now benefits from what political experts call the “indictment bump”, in French the “rebound linked to the indictment”.
Similar effect in polls
An enthusiasm that can also be found in the polls: since his first indictment, which had been the subject of dizzying media attention, the former president has also gained 9 points in the race for the Republican primaries, according to the aggregator. RealClearPolitics.
“Every time they charge me, we climb,” says Donald Trump during his campaign rallies.
And to claim, willingly provocative, just after his third indictment, that he “only needs one additional indictment to win this election”.
But if the former president and his entourage like to boast of the staggering amounts collected thanks to these legal troubles, they are however double-edged. The mountain of costs linked to these indictments is such that the candidate now has no choice but to dip into his campaign funds.
Lawyer’s fees which are thus not spent on television advertisements, meetings or travel. “Trump has already spent a significant percentage of his donations on legal costs,” political scientist Larry Sabato told AFP. These expenses, predicts this professor at the University of Virginia, “will only increase for months and months, even years”.
Source: BFM TV
