Trump Victory transferred only $2.2 million of $32.4 million to Trump’s presidential campaign committee. | Getty Trump raised $32 million with RNC, but kept only a fraction Only 14 donors gave the maximum to Trump’s joint committee with the RNC.

Donald Trump entered into a fundraising pact with the Republican National Committee to bolster his cash flow, but reports filed Friday night with the Federal Election Commission revealed that the party benefitted far more than Trump’s presidential campaign from a fundraising surge last month.

The two fundraising joint committees in which the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign and the RNC are participating — Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again Committee — raised $32.4 million between their formation in late May and the end of last month, according to their FEC reports.


Of that, Trump Victory transferred only $2.2 million to Trump’s presidential campaign committee, as compared to $10.1 million to the RNC, though $5.8 million of that went to funds that can’t be used for campaign activity, and are earmarked instead for the party’s buildings and legal and convention expenses. Trump Victory didn’t transfer any money at all to the 11 state parties participating in it. Meanwhile, Trump Make America Great Again Committee, which comprises only the Trump campaign and the RNC, did not transfer any money to either.

Trump’s campaign announced it raised $19.9 million in donations last month, while the candidate pitched in another $3.8 million of his own cash. But the campaign won’t be required to disclose its finances to the FEC until next week, since it’s on a different filing schedule than the joint committees.

The FEC reports show that the joint committees finished last month with $18.3 million in the bank, most of which they will transfer to their component committees, but Trump’s campaign likely will only receive a small fraction of that and future donations. That’s because federal contribution limits cap donations to a campaign at $5,400, while a national party committee can accept donations as large as $334,000.

The allure of joint committees for candidates is that they allow donors to write a single large check — the maximum donation to Trump Victory is $449,400 — to be divided among participating committees based on a formula and contribution limits.

And it was especially appealing for Trump, since the billionaire real estate showman largely self-financed his unconventional campaign during the contentious GOP primary. But it seemed unlikely he could do the same in a general election in which his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton and her allies are expected to raise as much as $1.5 billion.

Friday’s FEC reports over the period during which Trump began seeking outside cash in earnest. They show maximum $449,400 donations to Trump Victory from only 14 donors. While the group includes the influential New York donor Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer, most of the GOP’s elite donors are absent. In their place are close Trump friends and associates such as Las Vegas gambling investor Phil Ruffin and Dallas banker Andy Beal.