Within hours of Donald Trump's conviction in Manhattan on Thursday, we were already hearing reports of a massive spike in donations to both Trump's campaign and other Republican organizations' fundraising efforts. Both of the primary Trump fundraising websites crashed under the strain for a brief time. (Everything was back online yesterday.) But just how big of a hault did the sudden outpouring generate? The Free Beacon tallied the numbers and published the eye-watering figures. Records were set not only for the Trump campaign, but for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee as well. The lion's share of it went straight to Trump's campaign, however. And he's probably going to need it, particularly if he is kept off the campaign trail even longer after his sentencing on July 11.

Republicans have received record-breaking donations since Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Thursday became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes.

The Trump campaign, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee all announced record-high donations, less than 24 hours after a New York jury found Trump guilty Thursday afternoon on all 34 charges for falsifying documents to cover up a hush money payment to an adult film actress ahead of the 2016 election.

The Trump campaign said its "digital fundraising system was overwhelmed with support, and despite temporary delays online because of the amount of traffic, President Trump raised $34.8 million dollars from small dollar donors."

So the Trump campaign racked up nearly $35 million in barely 24 hours. Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told Fox News yesterday afternoon that they had been receiving donations from "not thousands, not tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands, but millions of people." Most were small-dollar donors. Perhaps even more significantly, she said that nearly half of them were people "who have never donated to our campaign before." (That sounds right to me since I was one of them.)

The NRSC broke its previous record as noted above. They took in $360,000, which was significantly better than the $325,000 they took in on Super Tuesday when Trump clinched the nomination. The NRCC wasn't far behind, recording $300,000 in donations by Thursday night. That far exceeded the $175,000 haul they raked in on the day that Mike Johnson was selected as the new Speaker of the House. 

None of this can be a simple coincidence. When that conviction was handed down by a kangaroo court in Manhattan, the Democrats woke up a sleeping dragon. (There is an old saying about tickling a sleeping dragon's tail that they probably should have checked into first.) Most reasonable people outside of the leftist media could clearly see what was going on and the rage around the nation was palpable. The significance of that outpouring of donations shouldn't be understated. You can take what you like from the polls because people can say almost anything during a polling call depending on their mood at the moment. But when they rush to their keyboards and break out their credit cards, things have gotten serious.

The fact that the GOP congressional committees both broke records may turn out to be equally telling. That suggests that at least some people aren't only fed up with the treatment that Donald Trump has been receiving. They're spreading the blame around to the entire Democratic Party. And why wouldn't they? Alvin Bragg never could have pulled this off on his own. The entire thing appears to have been orchestrated, likely with at least some involvement on the part of the Biden administration. 

Of course, none of this may wind up mattering if it doesn't translate into increased turnout in November and a decisive victory for both Donald Trump and the Republican Party in general. By tomorrow or Monday we should have the results of the first round of post-conviction national polling. At that point, we will have a better idea of whether or not a truly seismic shift has taken place or if this was just a momentary flash in the pan.