WASHINGTON听–听Conservative billionaires Liz and Dick Uihlein will help fund聽鈥檚 campaign, giving the former president financial support as he seeks to catch a fundraising lead built by President聽, the Financial Times said on Saturday.
The Uihleins, who founded the Uline shipping and packaging company from their basement in 1980, had donated to the Republican primary campaign of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who dropped out of the race in January.
Uline did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
News of the couple’s decision came after the former president won 14 out of 15 states in the Super Tuesday primaries and his last Republican rival, Nikki Haley, quit the race, the FT said.
贬别谤听聽all but assured that Trump will be the party’s nominee and face off again against Biden, a Democrat.
Mr. Trump has Mr. Biden in fundraising ahead of the Nov. 5聽. Trump’s cash holdings dropped to just over $30 million at the end of January, down from around $33 million a month earlier, his campaign told the Federal Election Commission.
Mr. Biden, facing a less competitive process for his Democratic Party’s nomination, told the FEC his campaign ended January with about $56 million in cash, up from $46 million in December.
Mr. Trump’s legal expenses have grown to聽聽as he grapples with 91 criminal counts across four cases. On Friday, he posted a聽聽to cover the defamation verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll.
The Uihleins had each given $1.5 million to DeSantis and Liz Uihlein told the FT she would give a similar amount to Trump.
The Wisconsin-based couple have given more than $250 million to federal candidates and political groups since the 2016 election cycle, the FT said, citing the nonprofit OpenSecrets. They backed Trump in the two previous elections, before seeking an alternative candidate to support for the 2024 race.
In an interview with the newspaper, Liz Uihlein said both Trump and Biden were already well-known to voters and she wondered how much donations helped at this stage.
“These two guys are very well-defined,” she told the FT. “I don鈥檛 understand why everybody has to give all this money.”
She also expressed qualms over Mr. Trump’s rhetoric.
“Everybody likes Trump鈥檚 policies,” Liz Uihlein said. “But we have almost 10,000 people that work for us and I would never talk to them the way Trump talks to people.”
