Mugshot merch drives £6,000,000 boost to Trump campaign
T-shirts, hats and mugs bearing Donald Trump’s glowering mugshot have helped him raise $7.1 million (£5.6 million) in just a few days, his team say.
Supporters have snapped up merchandise themed around the former US president’s arrest in Georgia on Thursday, when he turned himself on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election in the state.
The items – which also include bumper stickers, drink coolers and coffee flasks – range in price from $12 (£9.5) to $34 (£27).
Nearly all feature the now-iconic photo, taken inside Fulton County Jail, with the slogan ‘never surrender!’ beneath it.
If accurate, the sales figures mark a major success in the Trump campaign’s ongoing efforts to turn his legal woes to his favour.
While most people who go through brushes with the law prefer to put it behind them, Trump almost immediately posted his mugshot on social media with the same slogan plus a vague reference to ‘election interference’.
He notably included X, formerly known as Twitter, on the list of platforms he shared the post on, breaking two years of abstinence from his account.
If there’s one thing the 77-year-old probably values more than his image, it’s money – and by that measure he might think the move was worth it.
On Friday alone, he’s said to have raised $4.18 million (£3.3 million) – more than any other single day of his campaign for the 2024 presidency.
With many Americans’ media consumption rigidly decided by their political leaning, it’s likely that tens of millions of people have only seen the picture with his characteristically bombastic spin on it.
The merch appeared only hours after Trump was booked, suggesting his team had the designs prepared and waited only as long as they needed to gauge how it would play with his base.
The campaign also fired out a slew of emails and text messages to supporters over the weekend.
They send people to a landing page which asks potential donors to ‘make a contribution to evict Crooked Joe Biden from the White House and SAVE AMERICA during this dark chapter in our nation’s history’.
All in all, the campaign claims to have raised nearly $20 million in the last three weeks, more than half of what he raised during his first seven months in the race.
That period also covers his indictment in Washington, DC on charges related to his role in the January 6 riot at the city’s Capitol Building.
Trump denies all the charges against him and argues they are politically motivated.
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