Waiters ferried trays laden with creamy desserts to a tent sent up behind the 27,000-square-foot home of a wealthy businessman just outside Orlando. Well-heeled Republicans paid $100,000 apiece for lunch, a morale-boosting speech, and a photograph with President Trump during an event that his campaign said was expected to raise $4 million.
That was just three weeks ago, but it could be a different age as the COVID-19 virus pandemic keeps about three-quarters of the population home.
Campaigns are readjusting to a world without rallies, in which appeals for cash risk offending a public grappling with life-and-death dilemmas and in which the wealthiest of donors have seen billions wiped off their personal fortunes. The result is a slew of digital fundraisers and a pivot to drop negative messaging during a time of national crisis.
Even the Orlando event, hosted by heating and air conditioning millionaire Bob Dello Russo, showed a sign of things to come. One of the star attractions was the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, who days later was self-quarantining after developing a fever. She was later found not to have the virus.
And it followed a busy weekend of fundraising at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, where several members of a visiting Brazilian delegation later tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Those events were expected to raise $10 million.
Since then, the campaign has pivoted to virtual events, donor phone calls, and a shift to smaller donations.
“We’re doing all the things you would expect us to be doing if we can’t be doing events in person,” said an official familiar with the campaign’s approach.
Virtual events and phone calls have donations still coming in, and insiders believe the crisis will not make a huge dent in first-quarter numbers when they are released in the coming days. They believe that, even though they cannot harness the president’s star power to pack sports arenas or to shmooze millionaires, it leaves the Democrats in a worse position.
“While it hurts everyone, it hurts Biden more because the Trump campaign has such a head start,” said a campaign adviser, pointing out a recent Biden “virtual happy hour” attracted only 2,800 viewers. “The president is not struggling for earned media, and our campaign has spent two years collecting data, with, what, 40 million supporters?”
Donors across the board are facing different demands for their money. Charities and healthcare services are launching appeals for help in caring for coronavirus patients and families that lost incomes.
And there is simply less money to go around. With businesses closed, cash flows are slowing, and plunging markets meant that casino magnate and major Trump donor Sheldon Adelson saw his net worth drop from $34 billion at the start of March to $29 billion, according to a tally maintained by Forbes.
With the first-quarter fundraising deadline coming at midnight on Tuesday, small donors have been bombarded with emails from Trump, Donald Trump Jr., former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and campaign manager Brad Parscale.
But, with the country in crisis, references to “the Unhinged Democrats and the Fake News media,” which peppered Trump Jr.’s previous missive, have been replaced by a more positive message.
“I love everything about my father. I love that he’s a fighter, I love that he has guts, I love that he’s our president, and I love that we’re going to have four more years,” he wrote.
A campaign insider said negative messaging struck the wrong note while people were dying from coronavirus infections.
“What you’re seeing is a lot more positive copy. ‘Donate money to help Trump or to help Joe Biden,’ and you’re not seeing references to the ‘fake news media’ or the ‘evil Democrats.’ The downside is, as anyone in fundraising will tell you, is that positive copy performs a lot worse than negative copy,” the campaign insider said.
Earlier this month, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee circulated guidelines to House Republicans urging them not to use coronavirus as an explicit part of their fundraising appeals.
“Be sensitive that your donors may have suffered financial losses during this pandemic,” wrote Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer. “While large gathering fundraisers may be impractical or illegal depending on your location, you can still sit down and make fundraising calls and touch base with donors asking how they are and how they are handling this crisis.”
The Trump 2020 campaign declined to comment on first-quarter fundraising other than to say it would be releasing numbers in a day or so.
