Former President Donald Trump has secured another $50.5 million in funds for his 2024 reelection bid, almost doubling his opponent’s record-breaking haul of $26 million.
Hedge fund billionaire host John Paulson told The Epoch Times in an email on Saturday night that the event has now claimed the position of being the most successful political fundraiser in U.S. history.
“Tonight, we raised an historic $50.5 million for the re-election of President Trump. This sold-out event has raised the most in a single political fundraiser in history. This overwhelming support demonstrates the enthusiasm for President Trump and his policies.”
The fundraiser, dubbed the “Inaugural Leadership Dinner,” was held in Mr. Paulson’s $110 million home in Palm Beach, Florida.
Co-chairs of the event include Robert Bigelow, head of Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace; Howard Lutnick, chairman and CEO of financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald LP; Robert Mercer, former co-leader of hedge fund Renaissance Technologies; Phil Ruffin, owner of Las Vegas’s Treasure Island and Circus Circus hotel-casinos; and Wynn Resorts Ltd. founder Steve Wynn, who served as the RNC’s finance chair from 2017 to 2018.
President Trump was in attendance alongside his wife Melania. Mr. Paulson’s girlfriend Alina de Almeida was also at the event, as well as former Republican presidential hopefuls including Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Before walking into the fundraiser, President Trump said of America, “We’re the laughingstock all over the world, we’re going to get that changed very quickly. And this has been some incredible evening before it even starts because people, they wanted to contribute to a cause of ‘Making America Great Again,’ and that’s what’s happened. We’re going to make America great again, everyone knows it.”
He continued, “The election now is going to be in a little more than six months, and it’s going to be the most important, I believe, election we’ve ever had. I think it’s going to go down as the most important date in the history of our country, that’s Nov. 5 will be the most important date in the history of our country. And thank you very much, thank you very much for being here.”
Mr. Paulson told The Epoch Times before the event that organizers had already secured $43 million in support funds for President Trump’s 2024 reelection bid.
“There is massive support amongst a broad spectrum of donors,” Mr. Paulson said in a quote emailed to The Epoch Times.
Some of the wealthiest Republican donors continue to back President Trump even as he faces multiple civil and criminal court cases, including a New York “hush money” trial slated to begin April 15.
The Biden campaign had earlier trumpeted President Biden’s record fundraising haul of $26 million at a star-studded event with 5,000 people in the Big Apple on March 28 as the biggest political fundraiser in history. The Radio City Music Hall event featured former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as multiple music artists and other celebrities.
The Biden campaign’s fundraising arm announced in a memo on Saturday that it raised $90 million in March, and was heading into April with $192 million in cash on hand.
Under a joint-fundraising agreement, funds from the Palm Beach event will go to the Trump campaign, the former president’s Save America PAC, the Republican National Committee (RNC), and state GOP parties.
The amount raised will be almost 77 percent of the $65.6 million that the Republican National Committee (RNC) and President Trump’s reelection committee pulled in last month. The campaign and RNC said they have over $91.3 million cash on hand heading into April. That amount excludes the $50.5 million raised at the Palm Beach event.
The 2024 election cycle is projected to be the most expensive of all time, according to advertising monitoring firm AdImpact. More than $10.2 billion will likely be spent on political advertisements by the end of this year.
The 2020 election already came in as the most expensive federal campaign in history, where spending on the presidential race exceeded $6 billion, according to OpenSecrets.org, a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in U.S. politics.
