Voters hoping to access a Park City fundraiser for Donald Trump will have to pay — at least — the equivalent of what it costs to open a Chick-fil-A franchise to hear from the ex-president during a Utah campaign stop next month.
According to an invitation obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune, the price to attend the Aug. 29 event is $10,000 — or $20,000 raised from others. To attend the high-dollar event and also take photo with Trump costs $35,000 or to have collected $70,000. Supporters can become a co-host and attend a roundtable if they pay $150,000, while a half-million dollar donation to the campaign will let an attendee join the host committee.
Supporters will gather at St. Regis Deer Valley, an especially popular venue for political fundraising among conservatives. The guest list is expected to include rightwing heavyweights from across the country.
The invitation says the first $3,300 of each contribution — in accordance with federal elections laws — will go directly to Trump’s campaign. The next $3,300 will be placed in an account that can be accessed to pursue a recount or other post-election challenge, as allowed by the Federal Elections Commission.
The Campaign Legal Center found that Trump used part of the funds raised for such an account in 2020 to shoulder legal costs related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and responding to subpoenas from the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which looked into pandemic-related waste and fraud.
Save America political action committee — the coffers of which have repeatedly been used by Trump to pay personal legal bills — will receive $5,000 after donors hit the campaign contribution limit.
After that, according to the invitation, $289,100 will go to the Republican National Committee and the rest will be distributed among state and territorial Republican parties. The Utah GOP has just over a dozen organizations ahead of it before it receives a $10,000 share.
A disclaimer on the invitation reads: “By contributing you understand and acknowledge that the recipient committees may use your contributed funds for any reason, as determined in their sole discretion, consistent with their obligations under federal election law. No statement contained in any solicitation should be reasonably understood or construed as a promise, earmark, or other designation to make any specific use of funds you contribute.”
This scheduled visit follows Trump’s cancellation of a June fundraiser in Park City to attend a CNN debate against President Joe Biden. The ex-president has not campaigned in Utah since his 2016 election bid, when he held a rally in Salt Lake City before the primary contest.
Trump’s most recent public visit to Utah was in 2017 to sign an executive order reducing the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) President Donald Trump is surrounded by Utah elected officials at the Utah Capitol on Monday, Dec. 4, 2017, as he signs a presidential proclamation to shrink Bears Ears National Monument.
The upcoming visit will take place just over one year after Biden held a high-dollar fundraiser in the Park City home of Mark Gilbert, a former professional baseball player and ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa under former President Barack Obama. Tickets for that event ranged from $3,300 to $100,000.
First lady Jill Biden made a separate appearance at the Gilbert home in January to rally support for her husband’s reelection campaign. And Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats’ expected presidential nominee, made a fundraising stop in Park City in June — weeks before Biden announced he would end his reelection efforts.
“On the one side of the ledger, you got an individual in the former president, who unapologetically talks about ... how he’s proud of what he has done to attack fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body,” Harris said at the intimate gathering in a video recording shared with The Tribune, continuing, “And on the other side of the ledger, we have in our President Joe Biden someone who from day one has been committed to uplifting the condition of the American people.”
So far, according to the FEC, Trump’s Democratic opponents have out-raised him in Utah. While Harris’ polling against Trump is limited, however, polls across the board have predicted the ex-president would beat Biden by a comfortable margin in the Beehive State, and the Cook Political Reports’ 2024 ratings categorize Utah as “solid Republican.”
The Salt Lake Tribune’s political correspondent Bryan Schott and politics reporter Robert Gehrke contributed to this story.
