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Trump was still trying this summer to personally persuade a few remaining billionaire holdouts to get back on board.

Two of his biggest targets were #Kenneth #Griffin, the C.E.O. of the hedge fund Citadel,

and #Paul #Singer, the founder of the activist investment group Elliott Management
—both former Haley backers who had yet to endorse him.

In recent years, Griffin has been among the Republican Party’s top benefactors;

as of August, he had donated nearly
💥 $75 million to G.O.P. candidates and super pacs.

But he had publicly disavowed Trump after his Presidency; according to a friend of Griffin’s,
he has privately called the former President a
“three-time loser”
and an “idiot.”

Earlier this year, he said that he would consider giving to Trump,
depending on whom he chose as his running mate;

according to the veteran fund-raiser, he was “not a fan” of Vance.

Singer had similarly given tens of millions to Republican causes this year without formally backing Trump.

In July, Trump met with Griffin and, separately, with Singer.

His lobbying effort was partially successful.

On August 15th, Singer sent $5 million to maga Inc.

Griffin, however, eventually announced that he would not be giving any money to the ex-President.

“I have not supported Donald Trump,” he said this fall.

“I’m so torn on this one.”

He added, “I know who I’m going to vote for,
but it’s not with a smile on my face.”

(Griffin told me that “Americans enjoyed greater economic opportunity,
and the world was a safer place,
under President Trump’s leadership,”
and that
“Senator Vance has matured quickly on the campaign trail.”)

Trump’s courting of billionaires has been an explicit part of the Democrats’ campaign against him.

At the Democratic National Convention, in August,
Harris said that the ex-President’s populist rhetoric did not match the reality of a man who
“fights for himself and his billionaire friends.”

But the talking points miss an uncomfortable fact for both parties:

during the Trump era, it’s the Democrats who have enjoyed a clear advantage with the nation’s wealthiest political donors.

According to OpenSecrets, big donors
—those who gave $100,000 or more to just one party
—contributed $5.2 billion to Democratic causes and candidates in the last election cycle,

and $3.3 billion to Republican ones.

Despite Trump’s cultivation of the crypto bros and Wall Street money,
his online chats with Musk and his Mar-a-Lago fund-raisers with Big Oil executives,

that trend is on track to continue this year.

A recent Bloomberg survey of billionaires showed Harris receiving support from twenty-one of the country’s richest people,
compared with fourteen who were backing Trump.

⭐️The difference, though, is that Trump had taken in millions more from these supporters.

🧨His campaign is far more dependent on its shrinking segment of the ultra-rich.