First on Fox: Trump-aligned super PAC has $55 million in the bank as 2024 presidential campaign gets underway

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FIRST ON FOX: The leading super PAC aligned with former President Donald Trump is sitting on $55 million in its coffers as the 2024 presidential election cycle gets underway.

MAGA Inc.'s cash on hand, which was shared first with Fox News on Thursday, comes mostly from a massive transfer of funds in late October from Trump's Save America political committee, as the super PAC has yet to launch its fundraising operations.

The super PAC reports bringing in $40 million during the Oct. 20-Nov. 28 reporting period, with most of the funding coming from the Save America contribution.

Some of the former president's leading political advisers and aides launched MAGA Inc. in late September, initially to support Trump-endorsed candidates running in November’s midterm elections. 

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Former President Donald Trump announced he is running for president for the third time as speaks at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022, in Palm Beach, Fla.  (AP )

The super PAC says it spent nearly $20 million on behalf of those candidates during the concluding weeks of the 2022 election cycle. 

With the 2022 cycle over, MAGA Inc. will now serve as the leading outside group supporting Trump's third White House run, which the former president announced on Nov. 15.

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Taylor Budowich, the former Trump spokesman who now heads the super PAC, noted that MAGA Inc. is investing in research, communications, and analysis.

The committee has also been putting out daily content, including videos, talking points, polling, research, and news articles touting Trump's accomplishments.

Former President Donald Trump during an announcement at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022. Trump formally entered the 2024 presidential race, making official what he's been teasing for months just as many Republicans are preparing to move away from their longtime standard-bearer.  (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"MAGA Inc is in a position to make sure President Trump has the resources and support he needs for a commanding win in November 2024," the committee told Fox News. "As the race develops, we will ensure every career politician and RINO who decides to take on our MAGA movement is vetted and exposed. And we will continue to highlight his accomplishments of President Trump and the reasons why he is the only person positioned to Save America."

Trump remains the most ferocious fundraiser in the GOP, but with a growing number of big dollar donors not committing to support a third Trump White House bid, the former president will likely have to increasingly rely on his army of small-dollar grassroots donors. While that should keep his campaign coffers well stocked, it could prove troubling for the Trump aligned super PAC moving forward.

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And while two years after his 2020 election defeat at the hands of now-President Biden, Trump remains the most popular and influential politician in the Republican Party and the clear polling front-runner in the burgeoning 2024 GOP nomination race, his latest campaign launch was anything but spectacular.

Trump's candidacy kick-off event last month at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida was widely criticized not only by Democrats but also by fellow Republicans.

Some in Trump's political orbit told Fox News the early announcement was intended in part to clear the field of potential rivals and help the former president avoid the growing net of legal entanglements, but it appears to have failed on both accounts.

Trump's also appears to be the victim of self-inflicted wounds, from his heavily criticized dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the antisemitic rapper Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — and white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes to a widely panned social media post which appeared to suggest the "termination" of the U.S. Constitution.

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And the defeat Tuesday of Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia's crucial Senate runoff election was the latest setback of a Republican nominee handpicked and supported by the former president in the midterm elections. Walker's loss followed high-profiles losses by Pennsylvania’s Mehmet Oz, Arizona’s Kari Lake and Blake Masters, Wisconsin’s Tim Michels, Nevada’s Adam Laxalt, and Michigan's Tudor Dixon.

People listen as former President Donald Trump speaks remotely to an annual leadership meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) (AP )

Trump has yet to hold any campaign rallies — unlike during the launch of his successful 2016 presidential campaign. But aides tell Fox News that's by design and that the former president will increasingly hold public events starting next month.

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"President Trump entered the race three weeks ago ready to win and he is going to do exactly that — no amount of wishful thinking from the media or consultant class will change it," Budowich argued.

And he touted that Trump is "building one of the most ruthless and talented teams in American politics, and he is the only person in the country who is ready and capable of reversing America’s decline."