Donald Trump is sitting on a $483 million war chest heading into the 2026 midterms—nearly three times what Democrats have scraped together—and he’s still sending emails claiming he’s “alone in the dark” with a “dying laptop” begging supporters for $33.
According to the latest campaign finance filings reported by The Daily Beast, Trump’s political committees and the Republican National Committee have amassed that massive sum through the end of December. The Democratic National Committee and its affiliated groups? A comparatively paltry $167 million combined.
THE DETAILS: The cash is rolling in from all directions. On the billionaire end, MAGA Inc. has pulled in $313 million since Trump returned to the White House, with eight-figure contributions from pipeline tycoon Kelcy Warren and Energy Transfer LP, quant trader Jeff Yass, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, and Crypto.com’s parent company Foris DAX Inc. Trump has been hosting “MAGA Inc. dinners” at his Florida and New Jersey properties to court these mega-donors.
On the small-dollar side, the operation has been blanketing supporters with increasingly unhinged appeals. His Never Surrender leadership PAC recently asked for “sustaining contributions” of $33 to help “complete the MAGA agenda.”
But some of these pitches have veered into the absurd. In one email, Trump wrote: “I’m sitting here. Alone. In the war room. Fighting for you. It’s just me, one dying laptop, and the 72-hour countdown clock to my first mid-month deadline of the year just RANG.”
The email warned that failure to donate would lead to “Open borders forever,” “Your guns confiscated,” “Your kids brainwashed,” and—worst of all, apparently—”your favorite President (ME!) might just go through another FAKE impeachment!”
Another fundraising message threatened to refer non-responsive recipients to Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they didn’t confirm their citizenship through a survey. (Classy.)
OF COURSE: Trump himself has admitted he’s sweating the midterms. “Even presidents, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, when they win, it doesn’t make any difference—they seem to lose the midterms,” he told Fox News on January 27. “So, that’s the only thing I worry about.”
WHY IT MATTERS: That worry may be well-founded. Recent national polls show growing disapproval of Trump’s handling of the economy, alongside frustration over deportations and foreign policy. The coalition that powered his return to office—independents, young voters, Black and Hispanic men—is showing signs of fracturing.
So despite having nearly half a billion dollars at his disposal, Trump’s operation is still pumping out panic-mode fundraising emails that read like dispatches from a bunker. The money might be flowing, but the desperation is palpable—and the 2026 midterms are looking like they could be a real fight.