A new dark money group is set to infuse Donald Trump’s presidential campaign with big financial backing.
The non-profit group, known as Securing American Greatness, began running television ads in Pennsylvania this week that accuse President Joe Biden of downplaying just how significant inflation in the country is.
The commercial takes a shot at Biden’s mental acuity when it says:
“Is it dishonesty or dementia? Either way, to fix inflation, Biden has to admit it’s bad.”
One person who’s familiar with the group’s plans told Politico recently that the group will spend $2 million to have this ad air over a period of sevendays.
The non-profit is being run by Taylor Budowich, a main ally of Trump’s. But, it’s just one outside group that is working to boost the financial status of Trump’s campaign, which is far behind that of Biden when it comes to money raised.
Because Securing American Greatness is a dark money group, it can raise an unlimited amount of money and doesn’t have to disclose who its donors are. It can then oppose and support whatever political candidates it wants to, as long as the primary activity of the group isn’t electioneering.
In addition to this new dark money group, Budowich oversees MAGA Inc., which is the principal super PAC that supports Trump’s campaign.
Right for America, another pro-Trump super PAC, is funded by Ike Perlmutter, a friend of Trump’s who is a former executive at Marvel Entertainment.
A third super PAC that supports Trump emerged late last week. That group is called Preserve America, and it’s being bankrolled by Miriam Adelson, a billionaire who runs casinos.
Super PACs have more freedom to spend money how they wish than dark money groups like Securing American Greatness does. At the same time, the group is very appealing to some donors who don’t wish for their names to be publicly associated with giving money to the presumptive GOP nominee.
Dark money groups are nothing new to presidential politics.
Future Forward, the primary super PAC that supports Biden’s campaign, has a separate non-profit arm that’s called Future Forward USA Action.
The Trump campaign has been hoping that outside groups will begin to contribute more to his cause to help them close a shortfall in cash that he’s experiencing compared to Biden.
At the conclusion of April, the Biden campaign had $84 million cash on hand, while Trump’s campaign only had $49 million.
It’s expected that gap could soon close, though. The Trump campaign said last Friday that, in the immediate aftermath of his guilty conviction in the New York business fraud case, they were able to raise almost $53 million — which is a massive amount of money in such a short period of time.
Indeed, while many liberals would have hoped that a guilty verdict in that case — and in the three other criminal cases he’s facing — would hurt Trump’s cause, it looks like that, at least in the short term, it could end up helping him.
