WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s campaign said on Friday it had raised nearly $53 million in online small-dollar donations after he was convicted in his New York hush money trial, boasting that the verdict had galvanised his support “like never before.” The record haul was equivalent to more than $2 million raised per hour, it said.

Senior campaign aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in statements that more than a third of the total came from new donors to the campaign and hailed an “outpouring of support from patriots across our country.”

Calling the Thursday court decision a “sham trial verdict” the advisers reported that the “digital fundraising system was overwhelmed with support” despite temporary online delays “because of the amount of traffic” from small-dollar donors.

As of Friday evening, the day’s total had climbed to a whopping $52.8 million.

A jury convicted Trump on all 34 charges of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal in the final stages of the 2016 presidential campaign.

Prosecutors said Trump had sex with adult film actress Stormy Daniels soon after his wife Melania had given birth in 2006, and then paid hush money a decade later to avoid the fallout and deceive voters, before creating false paperwork to conceal the payment.

He is due for sentencing on July 11 but is expected to appeal the verdict.

“Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrats with their election interference political witch hunt have awakened the MAGA movement like never before,” LaCivita and Wiles said.

President Joe Biden has been at pains to avoid commenting on the trial and there is no evidence that he or his administration had any involvement in the investigation, which was launched by New York state, not the federal government.

Trump has a long record of turning scandal to his advantage, and his campaign website began redirecting visitors to a fundraising page declaring he was a “political prisoner” moments after he was convicted.

The page crashed for around an hour within minutes of launching, however, as the surge of Trump supporters overwhelmed WinRed, the official Republican Party donation platform.

Trump regularly characterises his legal woes as a battle against the evil forces of the “deep state” and Biden’s White House, casting himself as a martyr willing to sacrifice his liberty to stand up for his supporters.

In April he compared himself to South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela for the second time, and he has also likened himself to Jesus Christ.

Tighter rematch

President Joe Biden is hemorrhaging support among voters without college degrees — a large group that includes Black people, Hispanic women, young voters and suburban women — producing a far tighter rematch against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump than seen in 2020, Reuters/Ipsos polling reveals.

Biden’s support among voters without a four-year degree is down 10 percentage points, compared to this point in the 2020 campaign, the analysis of around 24,000 registered voter responses to Reuters/Ipsos polls in 2020 and 2024 shows.

Americans without college degrees made up three out of five voters in 2020.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2024