Joe Biden and the Democratic party raised $72mn in the second quarter to spend on the US president’s 2024 re-election campaign as they raced to gain an early financial edge over Republican rivals for the White House.
The figures announced on Friday by the Biden campaign eclipsed the $35mn raised by former president Donald Trump and the $20mn pulled in by Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, during the same period for their Republican White House bids.
Biden’s fundraising tally, however, falls short of Barack Obama’s joint fundraising with the Democratic party of $86mn in the second quarter of 2011, although Obama launched his campaign slightly earlier.*
The relatively strong numbers will be encouraging for Biden, who has struggled to overcome low approval ratings and enduring questions about his age as he gears up for next year’s campaign.
In the absence of any strong Democratic primary challenger, Biden’s campaign hopes to use funds raised this year to build a war chest for the general election in 2024 at a time when Republicans are forced to spend cash fighting contested primaries.
“While Republicans are burning through resources in a divisive primary, focused on who can take the most extreme [Make America Great Again] positions, we are significantly out-raising every single one of them,” said Julie Chávez-Rodriguez, Biden’s 2024 campaign manager, in a short video announcement.
However, the haul is well short of the more than $1bn that the Biden campaign expects to raise for the 2024 election. And Democrats will have to overcome heavy spending by outside groups supporting Republican candidates, including Trump and DeSantis.
The full details of the second quarter fundraising data for next year’s presidential campaigns are due to be revealed in Federal Election Commission filings due on Saturday.
On the Republican side, the figures could determine which of the contenders who are lagging behind in the polls will qualify for the party’s first presidential nomination debate next month in Wisconsin.
Biden’s campaign said it had raised money from 394,000 donors across the country in the second quarter, with 97 per cent of donations under $200. Almost a third of donors were giving money for the first time.
However, Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice-president who is expected to be his running mate next year, also courted big donors with a big fundraising blitz in late June that took them from California and New York to Chicago and the Maryland suburbs.
*This article has been amended to clarify Barack Obama’s fundraising period in the second quarter of 2011