Former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has a serious energy problem. It isn’t because Trump likes to sleep in his own bed, yet still only gets four to five hours of sleep each night. It is another energy problem that the campaign is facing – namely donations from energy industry executives, who are opting to support his primary challengers.
Donald Trump Faces a New Challenge
Politico.com reported on Wednesday that oil and gas magnate Harold Hamm has already donated to Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, while pipeline mogul Kelcy Warren and Midland Energy Inc. CEO Syed Javaid Anwar also contributed to DeSantis. Billionaire energy executive Jeffery Hildebrand is backing North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum’s campaign.
The pipeline of donations is apparently flowing, just not toward Trump.
Even coal executive Joe Craft and his wife, Kelly — who served as ambassador to the United Nations under the former president — have opted to support DeSantis, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie.
Those wealthy donors have yet to make any donations to the Trump campaign. And the reasons are obvious, even as Trump has a commanding lead in current polls over the entire GOP field.
“The simple explanation is that Trump has issues,” Bill Miller, a longtime Texas lobbyist, told Politico.com, citing Trump’s numerous lawsuits that show no sign of going away. It’s kind of like a car that’s not quite in good shape and it’s got to go on a road trip. There are gonna be problems. As a consequence, donors are spreading their wealth.”
Tale of Two Campaigns
What is also notable is that even as his campaign doesn’t have support from wealthy energy donors, Trump has maintained a high level of energy with the MAGA faithful. Trump continues to draw in crowds, and he has remained the dominant small-donor fundraiser among the Republican candidates seeking the nomination next year.
Small-dollar donors can signal a campaign’s strength, but can also be crucial in sustaining a candidate through next spring.
“So this resembles 2016 on the Republican—on the Republican side, which is to say big donors are split. Some of them are going to Trump, but others are grabbing some of those big donors,” explained Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman. “So that would be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, also the South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. He’s getting some big donors. And then when you look at the small donors, Trump dominates. So those are people who give—it could be 20 bucks, it could be 40 bucks. They don’t hit the limit. So Trump can go back to them.”
Donald Trump has had seven or eight years at this point to develop a network of small donors and that includes anybody who has ever once signed up for a Trump campaign email, Newman added. Trump could be emailing those individuals relentlessly – while using his legal woes as part of the case that he needs their support.
“But because of his unique legal problems, there seems to be some likelihood that that does not automatically make him the guy who will challenge President Biden next year,” said Newman.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has been able to get the wealthy Democrats to support his reelection bid, but so far the smaller donors, which helped Biden defeat Trump in 2020, and more importantly helped the Democrats maintain a majority in the Senate during the 2022 midterm elections have not opened their wallets to aid the DNC or Biden again.
As previously reported, according to the Federal Election Commission, the Biden Victory Fund – the joint fund-raising group – raised just $10.2 million from small donors, those who gave $200 or less, over the three-month fund-raising period that ended on June 30. As The New York Times also reported, that figure is less than half of the $21 million that Obama’s campaign raised during the same period of his 2012 re-election effort.
In other words, Trump is getting the support from small-dollar donors while Biden has the support of the wealthy.
Does anyone need further proof the world is truly upside down?
Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
