During his 2016 campaign, Donald J. Trump orchestrated a takeover of the Republican Party by, among other things, calling wealthy political donors the root of corruption and delivering a populist message that appealed to working-class voters.
Eight years later, ties to the super-rich are one of his key deciding points in choosing a vice president.
As the end of the selection process nears and an announcement is expected in the next two weeks after months of suggestions and deception, Republican candidates are trying to convince Mr. Trump that they have the financial backing that could help them advance in the race .
There are other factors that could make for a good match. Trump is said to be considering candidates with campaign discipline who won’t steal his precious spotlight and would do well in a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
But the money definitely matters — and some Republican donors with direct access to Mr. Trump have left an unmistakable mark on his process. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, for example, became a top contender late in the selection process after persistent lobbying by Steve Wynn, the billionaire former casino mogul who is close to Mr. Trump. Mr. Wynn also helped convince some other donors, such as Elon Musk, to give more support to the campaign.
Many vice presidential contenders, including some outside candidates familiar with the financial dynamics, have responded bragging — and sometimes exaggerating — about how much they could raise for the ticket. The posturing has in some cases drawn derision from some Republican donors who feel they are being used as pawns in a murderous war.
But the most successful financial wrangling came from the three candidates currently considered front-runners for the job: Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
Mr. Burgum, a former software executive who sold a company to Microsoft, has an estimated net worth of at least $100 million, according to Forbes, suggesting he could invest some of his fortune in the race. He spent more than $10 million last year on his own short-lived, long-term presidential bid.
He has also sought to demonstrate his fundraising potential for Mr. Trump by luring wealthy first-time donors into the president’s corner. On Tuesday, Mr. Burgum hosted a video conference with donors in which the campaign charged $10,000 just to participate in the appeal and $25,000 to participate in a question-and-answer session, a copy of the invitation said .
Tom Siebel, a billionaire technology investor, wrote Mr. Trump his first check — for $500,000 — because Mr. Burgum was in the running for the Republican ticket. Dick Boyce, a longtime Republican fundraiser in Silicon Valley and former chairman of Burger King and Del Monte Foods, said he also made his second donation to Mr. Trump – a $100,000 donation – in part because of his consideration of Mr. Burgum, a classmate at Stanford Business School.
“I’m inclined to do more with Doug in the vice-presidential position, and the complementary nature of him and Trump would also give a lot more people confidence,” Mr. Boyce, a former partner at Bain & Company, said in a statement interview. “The vice president is someone you can imagine being president, not someone who might represent a particular point of view, and sometimes that gets lost.”
Then there’s Mr. Vance. Mr. Vance, a former venture capitalist, organized a $12 million fundraiser in Silicon Valley this month to show his ability to attract donations from the tech industry.
Despite these efforts and Mr. Vance’s rise in Trumpworld, Mr. Vance’s single largest donor remains a blatant holdout: Silicon Valley megadonor Peter Thiel. Mr. Thiel, who invested $15 million to elect Mr. Vance to the Senate in 2022 and previously employed him, said clearly for the first time on Thursday that he would not be a major financial supporter of Mr. Trump, as it was him in 2016. And it didn’t sound like naming Mr. Vance on the ticket would change that.
“If you put a gun to my head, I will vote for Trump,” Mr. Thiel said at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I will not give money to his super PAC.”
Mr. Rubio, who built an impressive fundraising campaign for his own presidential run in 2016, could be an attractive option for the Republican donors and groups that poured more than $146 million into the nomination of former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, the Mr Trump’s last remaining primary opponent this year.
Ms. Haley’s supporters include some prominent Republican holdouts from the billionaire class, such as hedge fund titans Paul Singer and Kenneth Griffin.
And then there are outside candidates like Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who has aggressively sought to position himself as the darling of the donor class, claiming the support of people like Mr. Singer and Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder. A week ago, Mr. Scott hosted a meeting in Washington for supporters of his new political group that, three attendees said, had little subtlety about its purpose.
In their view, the event was an obvious show of his support among wealthy Republican donors. Speakers included billionaires such as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, billionaire investor Bill Ackman, oil developer Tim Dunn and Marc Rowan, managing director of investment firm Apollo Global Management.
Some donors connected to the event were outraged by the way the Scott team and the news media implicitly positioned them as supporters of a Trump-Scott ticket, according to a person close to those donors. In reality, this person said, many people signed up for Mr. Scott’s event because they believed he was likely to be the next influential chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. An adviser to Mr. Scott declined to comment.
Mr. Scott didn’t say much specifically about the vice presidency or even Mr. Trump at the event, according to two attendees. And although he attracted big potential donors, many big Scott fans privately say they are pessimistic about his chances in the sweepstakes.
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2024-06-30 13:08:27
www.nytimes.com
