“They want to put me in prison for 187 years”, “I need to know that you are on my side!”: after his conviction, the Donald Trump is filling his coffers for his duel with Joe Biden by inundating his followers with appeals for donations in inflammatory tones.

Thursday, shortly after jurors acquitted the Republican guilty about a case of hidden payments to a porn star, Donald Trump’s voters began receiving the first messages in their e-mails.

“I am a political prisoner!”“Joe Biden must regret attacking us!” he wrote in a message, accompanied by a photo of himself with a raised fist, before calling on “patriots” to donate $20, $47, $100 or $3,300 to his campaign for the White House.

A few hours later, the first SMS.

“They want to send me to prison, they want it My death“, he assures, referring to the democrats and accusing them, without proof, of orchestrating his trials.

“I will never surrender,” he promises his voters.

53 million in 24 hours

The effect of these messages is dizzying.

According to Donald Trump’s campaign team, the Republican candidate for a second term as the head of the United States has raised more than 53 million dollars only to online donations within 24 hours of the New York court ruling against him.

The avalanche of SMS and e-mails has not stopped since then. And the donations keep pouring in.

Donald Trump has put his problems with the justice system at the heart of his duel with the Democratic president since the first indictments against him last spring.

The strategy is paying off with his voter base, which is convinced that its champion is the victim of a witch hunt.

“If I could, I would give more”

Betsy Sowers, a truck driver from Iowa, says she sent “$100” to the former president a few weeks ago.

“And if I could, I would give more,” he adds, speaking to AFP.

Why is it so important for this fifty-year-old, who admits to having a hard time, to contribute to the New York billionaire’s campaign?

“I want him to have a war fund” to defeat the Democrats “and all their lies,” assures this Republican, who is convinced that all of Donald Trump’s legal problems are “made up.”

Barometer

In American electoral life, money, far from taboo, is a point of pride for the camp that raises the most. It is also a necessary “mom”: the 2024 elections are expected to be the most expensive in the country’s history.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have been so fixated on this dollar hunt for months now, regularly releasing laudatory statements about the state of their finances.

“The donation race is a good barometer for gauging the energy of a candidate’s most loyal supporters,” says Jeff Milio, a University of Missouri professor and campaign finance expert.

“That’s precisely why we’re seeing an increase in fundraising among Trump supporters in response to the trial verdict: they’re outraged and they’re expressing it by donating,” he explains to AFP.

These crazy sums are used to finance candidates’ travel, pay their teams, commission polls or, perhaps most importantly, pay for TV ads.

But they will not be enough, according to Jeff Millio, to fundamentally change the duel between the two men, the outcome of which may depend on a few tens of thousands of votes.

“The race will be ambiguous,” argues the economist. “And no amount of money spent on campaign costs until November is going to change that.”