Secretive groups that support third-party election campaigns

Trump has held a narrow but steady lead over Biden in most North Carolina polls for months. Trump led Biden 48% to 43% among registered voters in a recent East Carolina University poll. The survey was conducted May 31 to June 3, in the days after Trump became the first former U.S. president to be convicted of felonies in the New York case.

Some Republicans argued that Trump’s decline in fundraising did not mean suburban voters were less enthusiastic about the former president, or that abortion and other issues had further distanced them from the GOP.

“The idea that suburban voters are voting more Democratic based on social issues is overblown,” Jonathan Felts, a veteran Republican consultant based in North Carolina, told Newsweek.

“These voters are voting primarily on economic issues and, in a presidential year, on security issues, whether it’s law and order, border security or America’s place in the world,” said Felts, who served as White House political director under former President George W. Bush.

But several Biden campaign officials said the state is winnable, pointing to the president and Vice President Kamala Harris’ frequent trips to North Carolina as evidence the campaign is serious about contesting there in November.

“In all the key states, suburban, independent and moderate voters do not want to donate to or vote for Donald Trump, a failed president and a convicted felon,” James Singer, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, told Newsweek.. “This November, these key suburban voters will re-elect Joe Biden, a president who focuses on what matters to them: lower prices, economic opportunity and safer communities,” Singer said.

Biden’s campaign and Democrats in the state are focusing on boosting turnout in the suburbs of other key states, such as Wisconsin. Fundraising there shows they can capitalize on the lack of enthusiasm for Trump among moderate voters.

Trump campaign fundraising has plummeted in suburbs outside Wisconsin’s major cities.

Contributions to the Trump campaign in Brookfield, a suburb west of Milwaukee, are down 67% so far this cycle compared to 2016. Trump’s fundraising totals are down 24% in Waukesha, another Milwaukee suburb, 42% in De Pere, a suburb of Green Bay, and 33% in Middleton, a suburb of Madison, to name a few.

According to the latest quarterly federal campaign finance figures, Biden has raised $1 million more than Trump this election cycle, $963,000.

Support for Biden in the suburbs around Milwaukee and Madison — areas that have long been Republican and where the demographics are increasingly favoring Democrats — helped him defeat Trump by 20,000 votes in Wisconsin in 2020.

“The quintessential suburbs in Wisconsin are the ‘WOW’ counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington. Since 2012, those three suburbs have collectively taken away 40,000 net votes from Republicans in presidential elections,” said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll.

The new residents repurposing the suburbs outside Milwaukee tend to be “higher-income and a higher percentage of them are college graduates or postdoctoral fellows,” Franklin added. The new fundraising data shows that “the discontent with Donald Trump in suburban Republican circles is clear.”

Mixed Signals in Arizona Suburbs

Arizona is the critical state where Trump has the best chance to turn the tide in the suburbs. But even there, fundraising numbers show his support has declined since 2016.

In 2020, Biden joined Bill Clinton as the only Democratic presidential candidate to win Arizona since 1948. But Biden’s victory came by just 10,457 votes — or 0.3% of the ballots cast — and Arizona voters’ frustration with immigration, the economy and crime has made it a key target for Trump’s campaign.

In total, Trump received $2.7 million in donations in Arizona, far surpassing Biden’s campaign’s $1.6 million in the first quarter of 2024. Trump’s campaign has had more success with donors in the state’s suburbs than in most other battleground states, particularly the Phoenix area.

Compared to 2016, donations to Trump so far are up 15 percent in Chandler, 28 percent in Peoria and 86 percent in Gilbert, all fast-growing suburbs near Phoenix that have attracted growing numbers of new residents from California and other states in recent years.

Contributions to Trump have also increased in some cities, such as Tucson, and in rural areas of the state that are still very conservative.

Still, Stacker and Newsweek’s analysis of FEC data found that Trump’s fundraising has declined in other Phoenix suburbs, including Paradise Valley and Sun City, the Tucson suburb of Oro Valley and other suburbs around Scottsdale and Flagstaff.

The decline reflects demographic shifts in the state, with Democrats increasingly favoring the state, said Samara Klar, a political scientist at the University of Arizona.

The debate over abortion in Arizona underscores recent political shifts in the state that could put Trump in jeopardy in the fall, Klar told Newsweek. Arizona’s Republican-controlled state legislature voted earlier this year to keep in place a 15-week ban on abortions in response to an outcry over a state Supreme Court decision reviving an 1864 law that nearly completely banned abortions. But the 15-week ban could be challenged this fall by a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion access in the state constitution.

Trump’s support for abortion restrictions could be a liability in a state where polls show a majority of adults oppose broad restrictions on abortion services. His stance on abortion could further alienate suburban moderates in particular, Klar said.

“Having abortion on the ballot will help Biden tremendously,” Klar said, especially in the booming Phoenix suburbs where voters are closing their checkbooks for Trump.

“The Phoenix suburbs are growing like crazy,” Klar said. “That’s where Republicans are losing ground, and that’s the area in Arizona they should be worried about.”

That concern now extends to fundraising in Arizona and other suburbs of the state where elections remain uncertain, said Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll.

“Democrats are not as invisible in suburban districts as they were in the past,” Franklin said. Under Trump, the GOP has transformed into “a new populist party that appeals more to blue-collar, college-educated voters. That’s quite a contrast from the country club Republicans of the past.”

Additional reporting by Elena Cox, senior data reporter at Stacker; additional data analysis by Emma Rubin, data editor at Stacker.