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Financial contributions to presidential campaigns poured in during July from New Jersey donors, new Federal Election Commission reports show.

The mid-August filings from the presidential candidates’ principal campaign committees show the total they raised from the Garden State this election cycle rose from $13.7 million to nearly $18 million during a tumultuous month that saw one candidate suffer an attempted assassination and another bow out to support his vice president. Both events respectively lit a fire under Republicans and Democrats.

Republicans, who had outraised Democrats by $8.1 million to $4.8 million through June, saw Trump’s campaign padded by nearly $880,000 from New Jersey donors in July, according to federal campaign finance data. Democrats, meanwhile, saw individual contributions out of New Jersey for their candidates rise by nearly $3.4 million. About $2.8 million of that total came between July 21, the day Biden dropped out, and the end of the month, records show.

Going into July, the Biden and Harris campaigns had combined to raise $4.7 million in individual contributions from New Jerseyans, while Trump had raised another $4 million. However, the GOP held an overall lead to start the month, as former Gov. Chris Christie and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, combined to collect more than $3.1 million in contributions from New Jersey donors for their 2024 presidential campaigns, records show. The Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis campaigns also collected six figures from New Jersey donors.

The glut of July donations to Harris narrowed the gap considerably, though Republicans still held a total fundraising advantage of roughly $875,000 from Garden State donors to start August.

Retired donors go red

Federal Election Commission reports for the Trump campaign through July show the former president and GOP nominee has dominated in racking up small repeat contributions from New Jersey donors. One Roselle donor donated to Trump more than 1,100 times from July 2023 through July 2024, records show. Those contributions ranged from 59 cents to $70.27.

While that donor was self-described as a self-employed former account manager, repeat retired donors have been a driving force behind contributions to the GOP from New Jersey, records show.

Haley, who lasted the longest in the battle against Trump for the Republican nomination, took in nearly 10,500 separate donations totaling almost $1.3 million. More than half of those donations, roughly 5,600, came from donors self-classifying as “retired,” records show.

Haley’s donations from retirees outnumbered those for Harris and Biden combined through July by nearly 2-to-1 — it was 3-to-1 through June — but they still paled in comparison with Trump’s. By the end of July, retirees had made more than 67,000 individual donations to Trump’s campaign, including more than 1,800 from a single Bound Brook donor, records show. Retiree donations represented roughly two-thirds of New Jersey-based donations to the Trump campaign and more than one-third of all donations directly to presidential campaigns in the state through July.

The Biden and now Harris campaign, meanwhile, picked up roughly 23,000 separate donations from New Jerseyans self-described as “not employed,” records show. Fewer than 500 direct donations to Trump’s campaign came from people fitting that description. That total includes more than 100 donations from Trump’s regular Roselle donor.

NJ donors to presidential campaigns show trends

Other trends in the most recent campaign filings show that Harris and Biden have outpaced Trump in total donations from self-reported professors, lawyers and attorneys in New Jersey. Residents in general contracting, plumbing and some other aspects of the construction industry have conversely donated to Trump in larger numbers.

For the 2020 election, presidential campaigns directly raised more than $43.4 million from New Jersey contributors, with nearly $30.6 million of that total going to Democratic campaigns, federal records show. Biden’s campaign received almost $19.2 million from those Garden State donations, while Trump’s campaign raised $12.8 million. The totals through July for the two official Democratic and Republican nominees are $11.1 million and $7.9 million, respectively, below what was raised in New Jersey through the entire 2020 election cycle, records show.

During his run for the presidency this cycle, Newark-born Christie raised nearly $1.9 million in his home state from fewer than 1,900 direct individual donations to his campaign. The state-based contributions represented more than a quarter of his nationwide total. Christie’s fundraising in New Jersey benefited from large donations, though DeSantis had received the most donations of $5,000 or more in the Garden State through July, records show.