President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised a combined $72 million in the second quarter since the launch of their campaign 67 days ago.
Summary
President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised a combined $72 million in the second quarter since the launch of their campaign 67 days ago.
- The Biden-Harris campaign touted their $77 million cash on hand, “the highest total amassed by a Democrat at any comparable point in history.” The campaign had 394,000 donors in the second quarter and 97% of contributions were less than $200.
- Biden’s haul outstripped the combined fundraising efforts of the Republican presidential candidates, none of whom can fundraise jointly with the Republican National Committee.
- Former President Donald Trump brought in $35 million in the second quarter.
- However, Biden’s $72 million fell well short of what then-Presidents Barack Obama and Trump raised at the same point in their first terms.
- Trump and the RNC brought in $105 million in the second quarter of 2019, while Obama and the DNC raised $86 million in the second quarter of 2011. Adjusted for inflation, Obama would’ve raised approximately $116 million in 2023 dollars.
- NBC News observed “Biden had historically struggled to raise money for his past campaigns, but he ultimately set a new record in 2020, becoming the first candidate for any federal office to raise $1 billion from donors as he rallied Democrats against then-President Donald Trump.”
- The New York Times noted Biden’s total “is likely to serve as a salve for Democrats who have been privately gloomy about Mr. Biden’s sagging approval ratings. The finance numbers prove that whatever private misgivings Democrats have about Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, the party’s donor class is fully on board.”
- The Washington Post pointed out that Biden was able to outraise the Republican candidates because “individuals can give larger sums to the DNC than they can to individual campaign accounts.”
- The Wall Street Journal noted Biden’s fundraising total “included money raised through the DNC and a joint fundraising entity with state parties called the Biden Victory Fund. The joint fundraising agreement allows the victory fund to raise up to $929,600 from an individual donor.”
- The Washington Free Beacon covered another Biden fundraising-related topic: the “extraordinary” and “startling” spike in Chinese donations to the University of Pennsylvania after Biden opened his think tank there in 2017.
- National Review’s Rich Lowry warned the Biden campaign of “the debacle waiting to happen:” “that there is a fateful sandbag, wire, or step out there that is going to bring home the fragility of the leader of the free world in a disturbing and undeniable way.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
