With each indictment, Donald Trump raises crazy sums and climbs in the polls. Far from harming the former president, his legal setbacks are currently offering him a precious windfall in a country where electoral victories are won with billions of dollars.
Sunday, even before his fourth indictment in Georgia, the Republican, presidential candidate of 2024, already sent an email to his supporters, inviting them to revolt … by putting their hands in the wallet.
“Biden’s Department of Justice is trying to get me IN JAIL FOR LIFE,” he pleaded, without evidence, before urging his “patriots” to donate $24 to $1,000 to his campaign.
“The survival of our Republic hangs by a thread, America needs you,” he said.
Since his first indictment in the spring in New York, the tempestuous septuagenarian has flooded his supporters with text messages and emails of this type, using and abusing an incendiary lexicon.
The four cases in which he was charged? “Witch Hunts”. Democratic President Joe Biden? A “scum” at the head of a “fake dictatorship”, which is trying to “eliminate its main political opponent”.
The result is clear: the Republican campaign team announced that it had raised more than $4 million in 24 hours after his first indictment, for questionable payments to a porn actress.
And boasted of having collected nearly 7 million dollars just after her second indictment, for her deemed negligent management of state secrets.
Illustration of the influence that Donald Trump retains on his base, thousands of Americans respond to his calls for donations.
Like Jim Wood, a retiree met by AFP in Washington on the day of the Capitol assault, January 6, 2021, and who has already given nearly $400 to the Republican billionaire since his first indictment, according to public data.
This 60-year-old from New Hampshire is convinced that Donald Trump is the victim of political persecution, and promises AFP: “I will continue to give him money, even if he goes to prison”.
The war chest and the mobilization of his supporters are all the more precious since the candidate’s fundraising campaigns before his indictments had not been very successful. With each new investigation, the Republican now benefits from what political pundits call the “indictment bump” — the “indictment bump.”
An enthusiasm that can also be found in the polls: since his first indictment, which had been the subject of dizzying media attention, the former president has also won 9 points in the race for the Republican primaries, according to the aggregator RealClearPolitics.
“Every time they charge me, we climb,” says Donald Trump during his campaign rallies. And to claim, willingly provocative, just after his third indictment, that he “only needs one additional indictment to win this election”.
But if the former president and his entourage like to boast of the staggering amounts collected thanks to these legal troubles, they are however double-edged. The mountain of costs linked to these indictments is such that the candidate now has no choice but to dip into his campaign funds.
Lawyer’s fees which are thus not spent on television advertisements, meetings or travel.
“Trump has already spent a significant percentage of his donations on legal costs,” political scientist Larry Sabato told AFP. These expenses, predicts this professor at the University of Virginia, “will only increase for months and months, even years”.
15/08/2023 14:10:15 – Washington (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
