Stickers during early voting in 2024 for the US General Election. Photo / Getty Images
United States President Donald Trump has said the “only thing” he worries about is losing Republican control of Congress in the November elections.
The latest campaign finance filings show he’s built an unprecedented war chest to help keep that from happening.
Trump’s political committees and the Republican National Committee amassed US$483 million ($804m) through to the end of December, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.
That’s nearly triple the US$167m collectively held by the Democratic National Committee and its Senate and House party committees and super PACs.
The haul comes from tapping Trump’s wealthiest donors with events like “MAGA Inc dinners” at his Florida and New Jersey resorts as well as relentless appeals via text and email to small-dollar contributors who constitute the Make America Great Again base.
Since returning to the White House, MAGA Inc has got eight-figure contributions from pipeline billionaire Kelcy Warren and his company Energy Transfer LP; quant trader Jeff Yass; OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman; and Crypto.com exchange operator Foris DAX Inc.
In total, MAGA Inc alone has raked in US$313m since Trump’s 2024 election victory.
Targeting the other end of the donor spectrum, Trump’s Never Surrender leadership PAC recently asked potential contributors to make a “small, sustaining contribution so we can complete the MAGA agenda”. It asked for as little as US$33.
Whether all that financial armour is enough to buck history - incumbent US presidents almost always lose ground in Midterms - isn’t so clear, and Trump knows it.
“Even presidents, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, when they win, it doesn’t make any difference - they seem to lose the Midterms,” Trump said in a January 27 interview on Fox News. “So, that’s the only thing I worry about.”
Only twice since 1938 has the party in control of the White House gained House seats in a Midterm election.
During Trump’s first presidency, in 2018, Republicans lost 40 seats. In the two Midterms that took place during Barack Obama’s presidency, in 2010 and 2014, Republicans netted 63 seats and 13 seats, respectively.
This year, momentum and history seem to be on the Democrats’ side - they only need to swing a handful of seats to take control of the House.
Working in their favour, national polls show a majority of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, as well as growing frustration with the Administration’s approach to deportations and foreign policy.
Parts of the coalition that swept him back to office - including independents and young voters as well as black and Hispanic males - are fraying.
That handicap for Republicans has been evident in elections over the past three months in which Democrats have outperformed expectations, in part by tapping into voter frustration over cost-of-living concerns.
“House Republicans are running scared,” said Viet Shelton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He added that “with better candidates, a better message, and the public souring on Republicans, Democrats are poised to take back the majority”.
Reflecting the shifting mood, the non-partisan Cook Political Report last month moved 18 House races towards Democrats, bringing the number of seats considered solidly blue to 189, compared to 186 for Republicans. A party needs 218 seats to win the majority.
In the latest example of the headwinds Republicans face, this past weekend in Texas a Democratic candidate for a state Senate seat, Taylor Rehmet, defeated a Republican in a district Trump won in 2024 by 17 percentage points over former Vice-President Kamala Harris.
As the GOP’s fundraiser-in-chief, Trump isn’t waiting until November to put his cash to work.
The US President intends to use the money he’s amassed to play the role of kingmaker in the Midterms, according to people familiar with the strategy.
That involves doling out money to loyalists or chosen candidates in competitive primaries or congressional races and punishing lawmakers who’ve crossed him over the past year on everything from the passage of his signature tax bill to the release of the Epstein files.
Trump allies also expect to tap their stockpile for specific districts in the final two months in the states and races where it’s most needed, flooding the zone to try to ensure victory.
“MAGA Inc will have the resources to help candidates who support President Trump’s America First agenda,” Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesperson for the super-PAC, said.
MAGA Inc has already intervened in one election: it spent US$1.7m backing Tennessee Republican Matt Van Epps in a special election to fill a vacant House seat. Van Epps won by about 9 points - but that margin was narrower than the cushion of more than 21 points his Republican predecessor enjoyed in 2024.
Privately, many Trump allies are resigned to the idea the party could lose control of the House.
Trump has warned he could be impeached for a third time if that happens, and his signalled he thinks his party’s lawmakers would be to blame.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a perennial optimist in his public remarks, said yesterday that he remains “very bullish on the Midterms” and cited the party’s fundraising prowess as one reason.
“We’re going to have a war chest to run on,” Johnson said on Fox News. “I think we’re going to defy history.”
Pressed in Iowa last week about why voters may perennially pick the opposition party in Midterms, Trump mused about the electorate wanting “fences” or “guardrails” on presidents.
“I don’t need guardrails. I don’t want guardrails,” he said.
- With assistance from María Paula Mijares Torres.
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