(NewsNation) — Saturday night’s big-donor campaign fundraiser for former president Donald Trump is a good start, according to a former Republican presidential candidate. But the job is far from over.
“If you want to keep up in modern day politics, you have to have a massive network of grassroots donations,” says former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.
The 2012 Republican presidential hopeful says Trump had that big network in the last two campaigns. “But so far, this time he’s a little behind.”
Pawlenty tells NewsNation’s “Morning in America with Hena Doba” an “interesting” milestone in the Trump campaign “will be whether he can re-ignite the small donor base at a mass scale – and pretty quickly.”
The Trump campaign’s claim it raised $50 million at the south Florida event won’t be confirmed until the Federal Election Commission receives the campaign’s second-quarter fundraising report in mid-July.
But Pawlenty says the money represents a “reconsideration” of support for Trump. “Typically, people with a political view come to their political home” as the election nears. “And I think that’s starting to happen with the donor community for President Trump.”
