A gargantuan fundraising haul by President Donald Trump’s political operation is making clear that he has no intention of losing the 2026 arms race — or leaving quietly after 2028.
With $600 million now on hand across his direct and indirect political action committees, the Republican can boast about securing the largest fundraising haul of any president this early into his administration. The largesse is expected to be directed toward key U.S. House and Senate races where control of the majority hinges on just a handful of seats.
Part of Trump’s fundraising strategy has been to prove that he is far from a traditional lame-duck president; rather, he is teasing the prospect of fundraising support for congressional incumbents and aspiring candidates who publicly back his agenda, especially during the recent House passage of his “big, beautiful” tax cut bill.
Sources familiar with the president’s schedule say he has placed an aggressive number of fundraising events on his calendar as he works toward an eventual goal of $1 billion before Election Day.
By amassing money, Trump is amassing power, said one source who requested anonymity to describe his thinking. Any money left over after 2026 could be carried into 2028 and beyond, positioning him to be the potential kingmaker of his eventual successor.
“It’s leverage,” said Marc Short, Trump’s former director of legislative affairs during his first term. “It’s a reflection of the power that he still holds.”
Trump’s fundraising operation didn’t stop after Election Day, according to the AP. Instead, the president-elect called staffers to propose a brazen plan: Continue raising money, immediately, and not just for the inauguration fund, but to fill the coffers of steadfast supporters in the House and Senate.
The plan relies heavily on Trump making those fundraising calls himself. On them, he frequently encourages donors to “double up” their support of his administration by helping ensure that he is not hamstrung by a Democratic Congress during his final two years.
A series of high-dollar fundraisers shows just how keen Trump has been to keep his bank accounts swelled with political donations. He hosted a $1.5 million-a-head dinner earlier this month at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia for “crypto and AI innovators,” and a pair of “candlelight dinners” at his Mar-a-Lago in Florida on April 4 and March 1, the outlet reported.
Reliance on super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited sums, has opened up the potential for ultra-rich supporters to make eye-watering contributions. Those include MAGA Inc., Trump’s longtime super PAC, and Securing American Greatness, a 501(c)4 which recently began running television commercials touting the president’s goal to “get our economy back on track” as it sought to prop up Trump’s polling numbers among the general public.
In charge of the operation are Chris LaCivita, Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager, and Tony Fabrizio, the president’s longtime pollster. Never Surrender, Trump’s leadership PAC, and Elon Musk-backed Building America’s Future are also being advised by the duo.
Sources say that Trump, LaCivita, and Fabrizio are very much willing to spend against incumbents such as Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Warren Davidson (R-OH), the two deficit hawks who voted against Trump’s tax cuts this week. Trump also remembers the limits placed on him after Democrats won control of Congress in 2018.
“I’m going to be very active,” he said recently on “Meet the Press,” noting he’s “raised a lot of money for congressmen and senators that I think are really good people.”
