Former US president Donald Trump remains the Republican Party’s biggest fundraiser, raising more than $50 million this year, a report says.
Trump helped raise about $56 million from online donors during the first six months of 2021, according to a campaign finance disclosure.
The revelation is a sign of Trump's power within the Republican Party while he is out of office and banned from social media.
That amount of money is more than what was raised by any of the official fundraising wings of the GOP, and more than any other GOP figure.
The "Trump Make America Great Again Committee," which raises money for the party and for fundraising groups controlled by Trump, brought in over $34 million during the period, the New York Times reported.
Separately, Trump’s two other political action committees raised $21 million, according to the Times which gathered its data from the federal filings of WinRed, the dominant online fundraising platform for Republicans.
In February, Trump told his supporters to donate only to organizations directly associated with him, not to ones controlled by the Republican Party.
“There’s only one way to contribute to our efforts to elect ‘America First’ Republican conservatives and, in turn, to make America great again, and that’s through Save America, PAC, and DonaldJTrump.com,” he said in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
The former president has a tense relationship with some leading members of his party, including Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and Representative Liz Cheney, who was ousted from a party leadership role after joining Democrats in voting to impeach Trump over the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Trump was acquitted by the US Senate.
Trump was defeated in the 2020 election, then lost dozens of court cases trying to delegitimise the results.
Although Trump remains the party's most popular politician, he has not yet said whether he will run for president again in 2024.