Trump Vice President Donors: During his 2016 campaign, Donald J. Trump captured the Republican Party by blasting wealthy political donors as the root of corruption and delivering a populist message that appealed to working-class voters.
Eight years later, one of his key decision points in choosing a running mate is his association with the superrich.
As the selection process draws to a close, with an announcement expected in the next two weeks after months of tipping and misdirection, Republican hopefuls want to convince Mr. Trump that he has the financial backing to help swing the race.
There are other factors that can make for a good match. Mr. Trump is said to be considering disciplined candidates on the campaign trail who won’t steal his precious spotlight and would fare well in a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
But money certainly matters — and some Republican donors with direct access to Mr. Trump have left unmistakable fingerprints on his process. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, for example, became a top contender late in the selection process after persistent lobbying from Steve Wynn, a billionaire former casino mogul close to Mr. Trump. Mr. Wynn has also played a role in persuading some other donors, such as Elon Musk, to be more supportive of the campaign.
Many vice-presidential hopefuls, including some financially savvy outside contenders, have responded, boasting — and sometimes exaggerating — how much money they can raise for the ticket. The posturing, in some cases, has drawn scorn from some Republican donors, who feel they are being used as pawns in a hormonal war.
But the most successful financial jockeying has come from three contenders who are currently seen as the top candidates for the job: Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Governor Doug Bergum of North Dakota and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
Mr. Bergum, a former software executive who sold a company to Microsoft, has an estimated net worth of at least $100 million. Forbes, suggesting he might inject some of his luck into the race. He spent more than $10 million on his short-lived, long-shot presidential bid last year.
He has also sought to demonstrate his fundraising prowess for Mr. Trump by luring wealthy first-time donors into the president’s corner. On Tuesday, Mr. Burgum held a video conference with donors where the campaign charged $10,000 just to join the call and $25,000 to participate in a question-and-answer session, according to a copy of the invitation.
Tom Siebel, the billionaire tech investor, wrote Mr. Trump his first check — for $500,000 — because Mr. Bergum was in the mix for the Republican ticket. Dick Boyce, a longtime Republican fund-raiser in Silicon Valley who is the former chairman of both Burger King and Del Monte Foods, said he made his second donation to Mr. Trump — a $100,000 contribution — in part because of his consideration of Mr. Bergum. , who were classmates at Stanford Business School.
“I look forward to working more with Doug in the VP position, and his and Trump’s complimentary nature will inspire a lot more people,” said Mr. Boyce, a former partner at Bain & Co. Interview “The vice president is someone you can picture as the president, not someone who can deliver a certain state, and sometimes that gets lost.”
Then there is Mr. Vance. Mr. Vance, a former venture capitalist, held a $12 million fund-raising event in Silicon Valley this month, part of an effort to demonstrate his ability to attract donations from the tech industry.
Despite those efforts and Mr. Vance’s rise in Trumpworld, Mr. Vance’s single largest donor remains one clear holdout: Silicon Valley megadonor Peter Thiel. Mr. Thiel, who has invested $15 million in an effort to elect Mr. Vance to the Senate in 2022 and employed him, said Thursday for the first time definitively that he would not be a major financial backer of Mr. Trump. , as it was in 2016. And it didn’t seem like naming the ticket after Mr. Vance would change that.
“If you put a gun to my head, I would vote for Trump,” Mr. Thiel said at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “I’m not going to give any money to his super PAC.”
Mr. Rubio, who built a formidable fundraising operation for his presidential bid in 2016, could be an attractive option for Republican donors and groups who have helped more than plow through. $146 million In an effort to nominate former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s last remaining primary opponent this year.
Ms. Haley’s supporters include some prominent Republican holdouts among the billionaire class, such as hedge fund titans Paul Singer and Kenneth Griffin.
And then there are outside contenders such as Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who has aggressively tried to position himself as the darling of the donor class, claiming support from people including Mr. Singer and Oracle founder Larry Ellison. A week ago in Washington, Mr. Scott held a gathering for supporters of his new policy group, which, three attendees said, had little subtlety about its purpose.
The event, according to him, was a clear show of his support among well-heeled Republican donors. Speakers include billionaires such as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, billionaire investor Bill Ackman, oil developer Tim Dunn and Mark Rowan, chief executive of investment firm Apollo Global Management.
Some donors tied to the event as the Scott team and the news media implicitly Placed them As an endorser of the Trump-Scott ticket, according to a person close to these donors. In fact, the person said, many signed on to Mr. Scott’s event and believed he was likely to become the next powerful chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. An aide to Mr. Scott declined to comment.
There was not much talk at the event about the vice presidency expressly from Mr. Scott, or even Mr. Trump, according to two attendees. And even though he drew big potential donors, many of Scott’s big supporters say privately they are pessimistic about his chances in the sweepstakes.