They can’t purchase love with money.
The campaigns of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will woo a group of megadonors at a closed-door conference on Friday in Dallas as they compete to be the leading alternative to former President Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primaries.
The American Opportunity Alliance is convening as Trump maintains his lead over the Republican field in national and state-by-state polls, leaving his opponents dissatisfied with the inability of the party establishment to unite behind a single opponent. There is no evidence to suggest that Trump would lose in a head-to-head contest with any of them, but neither the faltering DeSantis nor the resurgent Haley have been able to defeat the other.
And it’s possible that not even hitting the donor jackpot would make much of a difference. Many Republicans have come to the conclusion that funding efforts to unseat Trump would not significantly change. More than $150 million has been raised for DeSantis’ campaign and the super PAC Never Back Down. The conservative Club for Growth-affiliated Win it Back PAC, which spent $4 million trying anti-Trump commercials in Iowa, found that its effectiveness was limited, with “diminishing returns,” against Trump.
Former state representative Anthony Sabatini of Florida said, “That is true at the presidential level, absolutely.” Sabatini was a rare Florida Republican to support Trump over DeSantis. In fact, because they spend so much time fundraising when they should be meeting people like Vivek Ramaswamy, another GOP candidate, “[a focus on fundraising] can hurt them.”
AOA heavyweight Harlan Crow’s aide Posie Paoletta and top American Opportunity Alliance donor group aide Parker Poling did not reply to requests for comment regarding the conference. Both the DeSantis and Haley campaigns declined to comment.
The focus of DeSantis’ argument is likely to be where non-Trump votes would end up if other contenders dropped out, as well as the campaign’s conviction that Iowa polling favors them more than the general public believes.
A Republican with firsthand knowledge of the campaign’s reasoning said, “The crux of their pitch will be simply while Nikki has her moment, mathematically there is no way she can win.” “If Ron DeSantis dropped out of the race now, all of his supporters would switch to Trump, and the election would be done. In the event that Nikki, Christie, or Pence were to resign, DeSantis would gain a sizable majority and be able to unite behind Trump.
“They will also say that the polling gap differs from what you observe on the ground,” the individual stated. “Polling in Iowa is not what you are seeing publicly.”
With predictions that he would enter the contest in May as the field’s strongest fundraiser by a wide margin, DeSantis’ campaign had only $5 million set aside as of last week for the primary elections. A DeSantis supporter called it a “huge problem.” According to Haley’s campaign, it has $9 million available for the primary season.
“When Trump is involved, nothing is normal, so I think it’s totally correct that money counts less when it comes to him,” said Shiree Verdone, a co-chair of the Trump campaigns in Arizona in 2016 and 2020 who hasn’t endorsed a candidate for president in 2024. “Trump just constantly dominates, whether it’s additional indictments or the money stuff.
I’ve spoken to a lot of contributors, some of whom were angry because Trump participated in so many primaries for the 2022 election but eventually lost, and many of them are switching back to Trump, she continued. “Many had DeSantis in their sights, but not anymore,”
After two successful debate appearances, Haley has quickly risen through the primary field. She is now receiving new attention as what may be the best alternative to Trump, a title DeSantis previously held for himself.
DeSantis’ inability to make the race into the head-to-head contest with Trump his team has long said it is, as well as the reality that he must compete with Haley for the support of contributors, are both indicators of the change in their relative status in the field.
Haley is only one of two candidates whose campaigns were invited to Dallas for the donor conference despite the fact that there are still many contenders in the competitive primary field, indicating that anti-Trump donors are becoming increasingly interested in her as her stock increases. More than 200 powerful contributors who often oppose Trump attended a gathering that Republican Sen. Mitt Romney organized in Utah this week, where the dynamic was in full effect.
The Romney conference is currently taking place in Utah, a participant claimed on Tuesday from the event’s closed-door location at Park City’s Stein Eriksen Lodge. “Nikki is socializing with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. She will benefit from it in terms of donors, but any MAGA-supporting voters won’t like it at all.
Trump did not specifically mention Haley, but he decried the event on Truth Social.
“I know that Candidates who are trailing by 57 to 70 points are forming a group with RINO.” Paul RINO, Bill ‘No Guts or Talent’ Barr, Mitt ‘The Loser’ Romney, and a few broken political ‘investors’ who will soon approach me, as most others have already done, were mentioned in his letter.
Chris Christie, Mike Pence, and Doug Burgum, who are also contenders for president, attended the gathering, while DeSantis chose not to.
According to some political analysts, such a money chase is pointless given the influence Trump continues to have on the Republican base.
No matter where they gather, how frequently they meet, or which candidate they parade before them, according to vociferous Trump opponent and former RNC chairman Michael Steele, they won’t affect Donald Trump’s popularity. “This is exactly what the base is repelled by, which is the moneyed concerns in the party.”
The assumption that money is not the issue when it comes to defeating Trump is supported by the most recent data on television viewing.
Sen. Tim Scott’s supporters, including his campaign and a super PAC associated with it, have already invested $51 million in buying and reserving airtime, which is about one-third of all expenditures on presidential campaigns in the 2024 season.
Groups supporting DeSantis are the second-largest spenders, contributing $36.5 million, or roughly 20% of the overall budget. Just under $30 million has been spent by organizations with ties to Trump, while $23 million, or 13% of the total, has been spent by organizations with ties to Haley.
Are you going to tell me that pro-DeSantis and pro-Haley organizations can band together and have a stronger impact? “It has not yet occurred.”
For anti-Trump donors, the more important question is whether one of the other contenders has what it takes to mount a challenge that is worthwhile investing money in.
Former Republican governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, who hasn’t ruled out running as a third-party candidate for president, stated on Tuesday that he is still working to assist Haley in defeating Trump in the GOP primary race.
Hogan claimed at a Bloomberg News discussion that DeSantis, who had been in a commanding second place, is “barely on life support” now. “If I were giving assistance to those donors … Nikki Haley, I believe, has a greater likelihood of being our nominee.”
When Win It Back PAC tested six advertisements in Iowa, it discovered that some messaging could lower Trump’s approval ratings, but not nearly enough to close the 30-point difference between him and DeSantis in the state. According to Win It Back President David McIntosh in a memo to contributors that was originally reported by The New York Times, the first three advertisements were more successful than the last three.
Together with other Republicans, the group is currently watching to see if a rival candidate emerges as a serious challenger to Trump’s nomination.
“While we effectively identified messaging & a series of ads that reduced President Trump’s support throughout our testing and polls, none of the other contenders have consolidated the non-Trump vote at this point,” McIntosh stated. “We plan to keep developing and testing ads for distribution when there are indications of consolidation.”
According to Andrew Hitt, a former chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, defeating Trump involves more than just a financial issue. First off, he asserted, Trump doesn’t need to “spend much money to collect as much.”
“He has something that I am not sure we ever seen,” he stated. And although we frequently wonder how he manages it, the truth is that he does. Every room and living room he enters is completely devoid of air.
According to Hitt, campaigns are also not using their budgets as effectively as they should, which results in a greater burn rate and fewer significant outcomes.
“They still seem to be spending like how we received information two decades ago,” he stated. “So it’s hard to keep up when one has old thinking, like traditional consumption, against fresh ideas like Trump.”
Republican primary campaigns in the past have provided examples of how candidates without financial advantages were able to win the nominations or at the very least a few early fights.
Both Santorum and Huckabee lacked financial resources. Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, who competed against Trump for the nomination in 2016, claimed victory in Iowa, according to Alex Stroman, the former executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party.
He claimed that in 2008, John McCain “was left for dead by fumes, and he became the nominee”.
“The primary process,” he stated, “rarely rewarded the most outstanding fundraisers.”