Donald Trump’s 2020 bid backed by record $36m fundraising

Within 24 hours of his campaign launch, Trump raised more than Democrat rivals did in months.

Donald Trump at his rally at the Amway Centre in Orlando. Picture; AFP.

President Trump raised a record $US24.8 million ($36m) within 24 hours of launching his re-election campaign as polls suggested that his divisive politics would again make him the underdog in next year’s White House race.

Mr Trump raised more than his closest Democratic rivals could muster in the past few months. The sum represents a rebuke to pollsters who have put Mr Trump behind his potential challengers amid staffing chaos in his administration and divisions over his policies on immigration, trade and foreign affairs.

Recent surveys suggest he is trailing Joe Biden, the leading Democrat contender, in vital states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which he won in 2016. Even in traditionally Republican states such as Texas, a victory is “no longer a fait accompli,” Rob Jesmer, a Republican pollster predicted.

Defiance in the face of polls and pundits has emerged again as a theme in Mr Trump’s attempt to win four more years in the White House.

At a campaign rally on Tuesday in Florida attended by 20,000, Mr Trump warned voters that if they failed to back him they risked turning the country towards “radical socialism” which would rob them of the American dream. With no new policies unveiled, it appears that Mr Trump is relying on wooing voters in a battle of values with the Democrat party. He used his first speech of the 2020 election campaign to denounce his old enemies — the media, the Washington establishment and “morally reprehensible” Democrats.

In 2016, it was bold promises to ban Muslim travellers, deport migrants and repeal Obamacare that defined his campaign. But this time he set up the 2020 race as a fight for the character of the country: “Our radical Democrat opponents are driven by hatred, prejudice and rage. They want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country as we know it,” he said. “The only thing these corrupt politicians will understand is an earthquake at the ballot box.”

The event had been choreographed for six weeks. Both of Mr Trump’s adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr, addressed the crowd to praise their father’s tax cuts and to denounce Mr Biden.

Donald Jr said: “I don’t know about you, but I look around this room, and when Joe Biden’s putting about seven people in an audience, I’m saying, ‘I think they may be a little wrong with the polling’.”

A RealClearPolitics average of polls put Mr Biden at 49 per cent. eight points ahead of Mr Trump, but the Democrat trails the president in fundraising.

Mr Biden received $US6.3 million in the 24 hours after announcing his run in April, growing to $US20 million since then. In the first three months of the year, Bernie Sanders, another Democrat contender, raised $US20.7 million, while Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts senator who launched her campaign in January but has shunned corporate donors, raised $US16.5 million. The president was introduced to the crowd by Melania Trump, the first lady, who said she was excited by the prospect of another four years in the White House.

“I just loved it,” April Blowers, 45, told The Times after the event. It was her first Trump rally, and “everything I thought it would be and beyond”. She added: “He’s brought the country to where it needs to be.”

The Times