Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is expected to announce that he, in partnership with the Democratic National Committee, pulled down a record-smashing $300 million in August, despite seeing no bounce in polls from the Democratic National Convention.
The haul comes largely from checks written by major donors who have finally signed on to Biden’s campaign, likely at the behest of former President Barack Obama, who hit the trail for Biden among high-dollar donors in August in a big way.
“The sum would shatter past monthly records as small donors have poured money into Mr. Biden’s coffers, especially since the selection of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, and big contributors, from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, have given checks that can be as large as $721,300,” The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The Democratic fundraising apparatus has also roared to life for Biden, directing small-dollar donors, who might have given to more progressive candidates but kept their wallets tight over Biden, to the 2020 presidential campaign.
“In a sign of the financial momentum behind Democrats, ActBlue, the main site that processes donations to the party, reported the second-biggest fund-raising day in its history on Monday, with more than $35 million donated. A majority of Mr. Biden’s August total came from online grass-roots donors, according to another person familiar with the figures,” the NY Times continued.
Obama’s campaign set the previous record for fundraising by a Democratic presidential candidate back in 2008 when Team Obama hauled in approximately $193 million, per the NY Times, though back then, FEC restrictions were still in place limiting individual contributions. Now, if a candidate is working in concert with his or her party, giving limits are much higher. In 2016, Hillary Clinton frequently raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars at individual fundraisers held in Hollywood and in New York City, many of which boasted in-the-door contribution requests of $50,000-per-plate or more.
Biden has done well in fundraising his entire campaign, despite initially being well outside the group of frontrunners for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, but despite his success, President Donald Trump’s re-election operation hasn’t been far behind.
In July, for example, Biden made what was then a record fundraising haul of $140 million. When the Trump campaign and RNC announced their fundraising numbers just a week later, Trump was shown to have bested Biden by $25 million, per CBS News.
Biden is, again, first out of the gate in announcing fundraising numbers, but the Republican National Committee, which tracked donations just to its website during the Republican National Convention, says they brought in at least $76 million during the convention, according to CNN.
Overall, the president’s campaign has easily surpassed the billion-dollar mark. At the end of July, Trump and the RNC had collectively raised $1.1 billion, and because the campaign does not have debts remaining from 2016 and 2018, the billion dollars is almost entirely available to Trump to use between now and November.