Enlarge image

Trump campaign bus in Georgia

Photo: Mike Stewart / dpa

A conservative billionaire couple from the USA has declared that they will support Donald Trump's election campaign with a large donation, reports the newspaper "Financial Times".

The Republican candidate should keep up with the Democrat Joe Biden in terms of donations.

In this respect, the incumbent president is leading against Trump, unlike in many recent polls.

According to the report, Liz and Dick Uihlein from the state of Wisconsin initially bet on Trump's Republican opponent Ron DeSantis, who, however, dropped out of the race for the presidential nomination in January.

The couple had each donated $1.5 million to DeSantis.

Liz Uihlein told the FT that she would donate a similar amount to Trump.

The Uihleins set up a shipping and packaging company in 1980.

They have been among the major donors in American politics for years; since 2016 alone, they have given more than $250 million to candidates and political groups, reports the "FT", citing the non-profit organization OpenSecrets.

They had supported Trump in the previous two elections before looking for another candidate for this election campaign.

The couple decided to donate to Donald Trump after the former president won the primaries in 14 of 15 states on Super Tuesday and the remaining Republican rival, Nikki Haley, gave up the race, writes the "FT".

Trump had recently fallen behind Biden in fundraising.

At the end of January, he had almost $30 million in cash, $3 million less than a month earlier, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Biden told the FEC that his campaign had about $56 million at the end of January.

Other major Haley donors announced that they would not donate to Trump.

The trials that are underway against him represent a difficulty for the ex-president.

According to the Reuters news agency, potential donors worry that funds they give to the campaign could actually be used to pay his legal fees.

msk/Reuters