Trump campaign, RNC raise $76M during GOP convention

President Trump’s reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and their joint fundraising committees hauled in $76 million during the four-day Republican National Convention this week. 

The haul, which was first reported by Fox News and confirmed to The Hill, was raised between the convention kickoff on Monday and Trump’s speech Thursday formally accepting the GOP presidential nomination.

Trump and the RNC were able to raise more during their convention that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), which raked in $70 million last week. However, Democrats up and down the ballot were also buoyed by $83.9 million processed in donations through ActBlue, the online donation platform for Democratic campaigns and several liberal outside groups.

Democrats appeared to draw more eyeballs for the major convention speeches than Republicans did, with Biden earning 21.7 million viewers for his acceptance speech compared to an estimated 19.9 million for Trump’s Thursday night address. Those figures do not include the number of people who streamed Biden’s and Trump’s speeches online. 

“With massive fundraising and record viewership, President Trump’s re-nomination convention was a huge, unqualified success,” Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told Fox News on Friday.

“Enthusiasm for President Trump is through the roof and is something Joe Biden could only dream of,” he added. “We come out of the convention at a full sprint and the president is going to seal the deal.”

It is still unclear if Trump will get a polling bump that has traditionally come after conventions, though past confabs have been held in person versus the digital format both parties adopted for their events. 

Trump and Biden are battling to gain a bigger war chest in the sprint toward Election Day. The president had previously enjoyed a massive fundraising gap, though the margin has winnowed significantly since Biden locked up the Democratic nomination. Biden and the DNC ended July with $294 million cash on hand, compared with more than $300 million for Trump and the RNC.