Washington –
U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign has amassed US$155 million in cash on hand for the 2024 election, far exceeding the in-hand total for his Republican opponent, Donald Trump.
The president raised US$53 million alone last month, which was the strongest grassroots fundraising month since the campaign launched, according to campaign officials. Among those efforts was a contest for supporters to attend a fundraiser on March 28 in New York with Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton that raised US$4 million last month.
“The enthusiasm we’re picking up as we go around the country is real,” Biden said in a radio interview with WNOV 860 in Wisconsin last week. “We’ve raised a whole lot of money. We have 1.5 million donors, including 500,000 are brand new, they’re small donors; 97 per cent of the donations under [US]$200.”
Both Biden and Trump clinched their party nominations last week, setting up a 2024 rematch.
Trump’s February figures have not been released. By the end of January, his two major committees had just US$36.6 million in cash on hand, and those committees collectively spent more than they took in that month. A major driver of those costs was millions of dollars in legal fees from Trump’s myriad court cases. The figures are only a partial snapshot of the Trump operation’s finances because other branches won’t have to disclose their numbers until April.
Biden’s cash on hand total is the highest amassed by any Democratic candidate in history during this point in the campaign, the campaign said. Emails to Biden supporters that focused on concerns over Trump helped drive up support last month.
“While Joe Biden and Democrats continue to put up historic grassroots fundraising numbers, Donald Trump and the RNC are in financial disarray,” said Jaime Harrison, leader of the U.S. Democratic National Committee. “Our grassroots supporters know that the stakes of this year could not be higher, and they’re chipping in like our democracy is on the line — because it is.”
