WASHINGTON: In the midst of polls indicating voter concerns about President Joe Biden’s age, high costs, and management of the Israel-Hamas war, the Democratic party and his 2024 reelection campaign said on Monday that they had raised over $97 million in the final three months of 2023.
In the midst of a year-end fundraising frenzy, the Biden team courted major donors in Washington, Boston, and California and credited the cash haul to “strong and growing grassroots enthusiasm.”
From October to December, more money was raised than both the $71 million that Biden and the Democratic Party had raised the previous quarter and the more than $66 million that Democrats and Barack Obama had raised during the fourth quarter of 2011 for Obama’s successful 2012 reelection campaign.
The $154 million that former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party raised for his unsuccessful 2020 reelection effort in the fourth quarter of 2019 eclipsed it. The Republican National Committee and Trump have not yet made public their fourth quarter fundraising totals.
Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement, “These numbers prove that the American people know the stakes and are taking action early to help defeat the extreme MAGA Republican agenda again. Our democracy and hard-fought basic rights and freedoms are on the line in 2024.”
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Since its April launch, the Biden campaign has raised a total of $235 million.
At the end of December, Biden’s reelection campaign had $117 million in cash on hand across many party-affiliated fundraising organizations. According to the Biden campaign, this was the most amount of money ever raised by a Democratic candidate in history.
The data are significant because they might strengthen Trump’s bid to be the Republican nominee to run against Biden in November’s general election. The state-by-state nominating process is scheduled to begin on Monday with the Republican caucuses in Iowa.
A shift that Biden has embraced at fundraising events, the Biden team has been under increasing pressure in recent months to be more proactive and forceful in drawing attention to the differences with Trump.
