During his 2016 campaign, Donald J. Trump orchestrated his takeover of the Republican Party in part by criticizing wealthy political donors as the root of corruption and by pitching a populist message that appealed to working-class voters.
Eight years later, one of his key points when choosing his running mate is his connections with the super-rich.
As the end of the selection process approaches, with an announcement scheduled for the next two weeks after months of suggestions and misunderstandings, the Republican candidates are trying to convince Trump that they have the financial backing that could help sway 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 prized spotlight and who would perform well in a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
But money matters, and some Republican donors with direct access to Trump have left unmistakable marks on his process. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, for example, became a leading contender late in the selection process following persistent pressure from Steve Wynn, the billionaire former casino magnate close to Trump. Wynn has also helped persuade other donors, such as Elon Musk, to support the campaign more.
Many vice presidential hopefuls, including some outsiders knowledgeable about financial dynamics, have responded by boasting — and sometimes exaggerating — about the amount they could raise for the candidacy. In some cases, this attitude has provoked ridicule from some Republican donors, who feel used as pawns in an internal war.
But the most successful financial race has come from the three contenders who, for now, are considered the 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 inject some of his fortune into the race. Last year he spent more than $10 million on his own presidential bid, which was short-lived and had little chance.
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 call with donors in which the campaign charged $10,000 just to participate in the call, and $25,000 to take part in a question-and-answer session, according to a copy of the invitation.
![Gov. Doug Burgum has a personal fortune that could help a Trump candidacy.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times Gov. Doug Burgum has a personal fortune that could help a Trump candidacy. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times](https://diario.mx/core/dmx/assets/images/2024/06/30/987ytre-viTjg2Cgz.jpg)
Tom Siebel, a billionaire technology investor, wrote his first check to Trump – for $500,000 – because Burgum was among the Republican candidates. Dick Boyce, a veteran Republican fundraiser in Silicon Valley who was chairman of Burger King and Del Monte Foods, said he had also made his second donation to Trump – a $100,000 contribution – in part because of his regard for Burgum, who He was a classmate at Stanford Business School.
“I’m inclined to do more with Doug in the VP position, and the complementary nature of him and Trump would give confidence to a lot more people, too,” Mr. Boyce, a former partner at Bain & Company, said in an interview. “The vice president is someone you could imagine being president, not someone who could deliver a certain state, and sometimes that gets lost.”
Then there’s Mr. Vance. A former venture capitalist, Vance hosted a $12 million fundraiser in Silicon Valley this month in an attempt to demonstrate his ability to attract donations from the tech industry.
Despite those efforts and Mr. Vance’s rise in Trump world, Mr. Vance’s biggest donor remains a conspicuous holdout: the Silicon Valley megadonor Peter Thiel. Mr. Thiel, who put $15 million into an effort to elect Mr. Vance to the Senate in 2022 and used to employ him, said definitively on Thursday, for the first time, that he would not be a major financial supporter of Mr. Trump, as he had been in 2016. And it did not sound as if Mr. Vance’s appointment to the ticket would change that.
“If you put a gun to my head, I’ll vote for Trump,” Thiel said at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I’m not giving money to his super PAC.”
Mr. Rubio, who built a formidable fundraising operation for his own presidential bid in 2016, could be an attractive option for Republican donors and groups who helped plow more than $146 million into an effort to nominate the Former Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina, who was Mr. Trump’s last remaining primary opponent this year.
Haley’s supporters include some prominent Republicans from the billionaire class, such as hedge fund titans Paul Singer and Kenneth Griffin.
And then there are the outsiders, like Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who has aggressively sought to position himself as the darling of the donor class, claiming support from people like Singer and Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle. A week ago, Mr. Scott hosted a meeting in Washington for supporters of his new political group that, according to three attendees, had little subtlety about its purpose.
The event, he said, was an open show of 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, chief executive of the investment firm Apollo Global Management.
Some donors tied to the event have been angered by the way Scott’s team and the media have implicitly positioned them as supporters of a Trump-Scott ticket, according to a person close to these donors. In reality, this person said, many people signed up at Mr. Scott’s event believing he is likely to be the next powerful chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. An aide to Mr. Scott declined to comment.
According to two attendees at the event, Scott did not explicitly talk much about the vice presidency, or even about Trump. And although he attracted big potential donors, many big Scott supporters say privately that they are pessimistic about his chances in the veepstakes.
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