Donald Trump’s historic conviction in his New York hush money case on Thursday may put the former president in prison, but it hasn’t slowed done the enthusiam for his campaign.
Shortly after the verdict was announced, the official GOP fundraising site connected to his 2024 effort crashed.
“The American people see through Crooked Joe Biden’s rigged show trial,” the campaign wrote on X. “So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump’s campaign that the WinRed pages went down. We are working on getting the website back online as quickly as possible.”
A GOP source told me that WinRed, the Republican donation platform, is overwhelmed at the moment. pic.twitter.com/fqMJCehx7D
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 30, 2024
Major Trump supporters said they were not detered by the conviction; in fact, they appeared energised by it.
"All of the charges are contrived," Robert Bigelow, who has given over $9m to an outside group supporting Trump, told Reuters.
Within minutes of Trump being convicted, his campaign sent out a fundraising email claiming the former president was a “political prisoner.”
“I was just convicted in a RIGGED political Witch Hunt trial: I DID NOTHING WRONG!” the email reads.
The message also boasted that Joe Biden’s “chances of a 2nd term END TODAY!”
Seventeen per cent of voters in a new poll said a guilty verdict would make them less likely to vote for Trump, while 67 per cent said a guilty verdict would make no difference in their choice in November.
Trump has fundraised off his legal troubles before.
Last year, following the publication of his mugshot in his ongoing 2020 election conspiracy case in Georgia, the Trump campaign used the image to rake in millions in donations.
Trump later gave away pieces of the suit worn in the photo alongside trading cards as part of his fundraising efforts.
Trump may be the first president in US history to be convicted of a crime, but his campaign is steamrolling ahead, with a slight lead over Joe Biden in national poll averages.
