In the primary campaign, Donald Trump boasted he was too rich to be bought – but he is about to travel to two of California’s richest enclaves with an urgent plea for cash.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee hopes to persuade fellow billionaires and even mere millionaires to stump up to $449,400 each to fill gaping holes in his campaign for the White House.

He is due to attend fundraisers at private homes in Rancho Santa Fe and Bel Air next week, on the eve of the Republican national convention in Cleveland, to try to narrow Hillary Clinton’s wide financial advantage.

A bargain-basement ticket, which gets a donor in the door but no picture or dinner, costs $2,700.

Even for that relative trifle, The Art of the Deal author may need to draw on all his charm, charisma and negotiating skills because California’s conservative donors are leery about his campaign, according to analysts.

“Much of the mainstream contributing community is very, very concerned about his candidacy,” said Jack Pitney, a political analyst and professor at Claremont McKenna College. “They worry about two things: that he’ll lose, or that he’ll win. Losing could drag down other Republicans. Winning could be bad for the country.”



Organisers of Wednesday’s event in Rancho Santa Fe, outside San Diego, include Doug Manchester, a developer; Jenny Craig, a diet guru; Madeleine Pickens, the ex-wife of the Texas billionaire T Boone Pickens; and Doug Kimmelman, an energy investor, according to a leaked invitation.

Organisers of Thursday’s event in Bel Air, LA’s swankiest neighbourhood, include Tom Barrack, a real estate investor who hosted a Trump fundraiser in May, Jamie McCourt, the former owner of the LA Dodgers, and Andy Puzder, a fast-food tycoon, according to the Los Angeles Times, which also reported the almost half-a-million dollar price tag for the most expensive tickets.

Turnout will indicate whether Trump has soothed donors’ nerves.

“Success depends on how many people show up,” said Rick Hasen, a law and politics professor at the University of California, Irvine. “It’s really hard to judge. I don’t know if he’s making headway. The big question facing Republicans is whether to support Trump or focus on the Senate and House races.”

The Trump campaign did not respond to queries about how much money it hoped to raise in California and how July fundraising was progressing.

The Republican candidate has vowed to turn California and New York, solid blue states, red in November’s election. Most analysts dismiss that as a fantasy which would squander GOP resources at the expense of genuine battleground states.

Hasen said it was difficult to know whether the casino owner really would take such a gamble, but he suspected he would bow to the odds. “I think he’ll use California in its traditional role as an ATM.”

Trump sorely needs the cash. In May, he raised just $3.1m from donors, a piffle compared to Clinton’s $28m, which triggered renewed Republican angst about the potential for an electoral fiasco.

This week he announced he had raised $51m in June for his campaign and the Republican national committee, a significant improvement which narrowed the gap with Clinton, who announced that she had raised $68m, with $40m earmarked for her campaign.

But analysts questioned Trump’s numbers. It was unclear how much of the $51m was for his campaign, and how much cash he had on hand. It also emerged that he had not yet converted more than $45m in loans to his campaign to donations. He has promised to do so in order to show donors he is serious about winning.

Doubts over Trump’s willingness to spend a sizeable chunk of his own fortune – which he claims exceeds $10bn – will discourage potential campaign bundlers, said Pitney.

“If I were a big contributor and a multimillionaire in the room with Donald Trump, the question I’d ask is, ‘Sir, why should I give you money?’ If Trump really is as wealthy as he claims, then there are few people in America that are richer than he is.”

Pitney recalled that as a teenage campaigner for Nelson Rockefeller in 1976, he struggled to persuade ordinary Republicans to contribute to a tycoon’s election war chest. “There was a lot of sales resistance.”