President Joe Biden‘s re-election effort announced fundraising numbers on Monday that the campaign touted as a significant indicator of strong public support despite polling that signals trouble ahead and other challenges on the horizon.
Donors gave Biden’s team and allied entities of the Democratic Party $97 million in the final three months of 2023 and their $117 million cash on hand is “the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate in history at this point in the cycle,” boasted a campaign email reported by the Washington Examiner.
The haul not only outpaced fundraising in the previous two quarters the $71-$72 million range but also eclipsed the $68 million former President Barack Obama’s re-election endeavor got in the fourth quarter of 2011. But, as noted by some in the media, Biden’s fundraising muscle is less impressive when the numbers are adjusted for inflation and because it was relatively recently — when Obama ran in 2008 — that major candidates began to break away from the modern public financing model and its limits.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican leading in the polls heading into the Iowa caucuses on Monday, has not released his 2023 fourth-quarter fundraising numbers as of press time. Trump’s third quarter filing, for July through September, showed that his re-election effort raised about $45.5 million and had $37.5 million cash on hand. That war chest put Trump ahead of the other GOP candidates. Like Biden’s team has done, Trump’s campaign claimed the numbers were fueled by robust grassroots support.
Both frontrunners are faced with hurdles this election year. Trump is spending a great deal of time and resources trying to fend off an array of criminal and civil cases in court. He is also contending with efforts to remove him from the ballot in a number of states. Biden is far and away the favorite to win the Democratic Party’s nomination, but he is grappling with low approval numbers and questions about his fitness to continue serving while in his 80s. And there remain policy challenges such as border security and political minefields, including a corruption-focused impeachment inquiry that has embroiled the president’s family.
It also remains to be seen just how much of an impact a third-party candidate will have on the general election, particularly a well-funded effort boosting Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as voters show little appetite for a 2020 rematch between Trump and Biden. Yet for the moment, as the country waits to see how Iowa’s first-in-the-nation GOP caucuses pan out, the team behind Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris is voicing optimism as donations surge in their direction.
“The Team Biden-Harris coalition knows the stakes of this election and is ready to win this November,” said Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez, according to The New York Times. “These numbers prove that the American people know the stakes and are taking action early to help defeat the extreme MAGA Republican agenda again.”