--- title: Donald Trump Wealth: GOP Voters Like Self-Funded Candidates description: A CBS News poll released Tuesday showed that registered Republicans are more likely to back candidates who are spending their own money. canonical: https://time.com/3984639/donald-trump-self-funding-campaign/ author: Aditya Agrawal article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-04T21:54:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T09:53:59.270Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Donald Trump's Wealth Helps Him With Republican Voters og:description: They like candidates who spend their own money on a campaign. og:url: https://time.com/3984639/donald-trump-self-funding-campaign/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte00e049780aeaec2/69885de7cd1bba02976fc97a/donald-trump-self-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visits his Scottish golf course Turnberry on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Donald Trump's Wealth Helps Him With Republican Voters twitter:description: They like candidates who spend their own money on a campaign. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte00e049780aeaec2/69885de7cd1bba02976fc97a/donald-trump-self-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Donald Trump's Wealth Helps Him With Republican Voters by [Aditya Agrawal](https://time.com/author/aditya-agrawal/) ## Aditya Agrawal Aug 4, 2015 9:54 PM UTC  Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visits his Scottish golf course Turnberry on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland. Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visits his Scottish golf course Turnberry on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland.Jeff J Mitchell—2015 Getty Images by [Aditya Agrawal](https://time.com/author/aditya-agrawal/) ## Aditya Agrawal Aug 4, 2015 9:54 PM UTC Donald Trump chose the right party when he decided to run for the Republican presidential nomination. A [CBS News poll](http://www.scribd.com/doc/273490309/CBS-News-GOP-presidential-candidates-poll) released Tuesday showed that registered Republicans are more likely than their Democratic counterparts to back candidates who are spending their own money on a campaign. According to the poll, almost one-third of registered Republican voters said they prefer a candidate who “pays for their campaign by using their own personal wealth,” while only about one-fourth of registered Democratic voters who said the same. There was a similar gap over candidates who seek political donations, with fewer registered Republicans preferring candidates who raise money from donations. But similar majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents said it doesn’t matter to them how candidates fund their campaigns. Trump has played up the independence that self-funding gives his campaign. “I don’t need anybody’s money,” [he said](http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/06/16/donald-trump-transcript-our-country-needs-a-truly-great-leader/) at his campaign launch in June. “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.” According to data from the [Campaign Finance Institute](http://www.cfinst.org), a nonpartisan think tank, 49 of the 69 candidates who spent at least $1 million of their own money in races for the U.S. House and Senate between 2010 and 2012 were Republicans. The poll showed Trump leading the Republican field with 24 percent support, followed by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who had 13 percent. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3984639/donald-trump-self-funding-campaign/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3984639/donald-trump-self-funding-campaign/"},"headline":"How Donald Trump's Wealth Helps Him With Republican Voters","datePublished":"2015-08-04T21:54:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T09:53:59.270Z","description":"A CBS News poll released Tuesday showed that registered Republicans are more likely to back candidates who are spending their own money.","url":"https://time.com/3984639/donald-trump-self-funding-campaign/","keywords":["Donald Trump","2016 Election topic","Polling"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte00e049780aeaec2/69885de7cd1bba02976fc97a/donald-trump-self-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Aditya Agrawal","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/aditya-agrawal/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte00e049780aeaec2/69885de7cd1bba02976fc97a/donald-trump-self-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visits his Scottish golf course Turnberry on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland.","caption":"Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump visits his Scottish golf course Turnberry on July 30, 2015 in Ayr, Scotland.","creditText":"Jeff J Mitchell—2015 Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3984639/donald-trump-self-funding-campaign/","name":"How Donald Trump's Wealth Helps Him With Republican Voters"}}]}] ```