President Joe Biden’s political operation continues to build a substantial fundraising advantage over his likely GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump, raising $42 million in January.
The campaign said they and the Democratic National Committee have a combined $130 million on hand. Biden has established joint fundraising committees with the DNC and state parties, allowing him to collect checks worth up to $929,600 from a single donor.
Trump, who has yet to officially lock up the GOP nomination, is still limited to the standard federal donation limit of $3,300 per person. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley remains in the Republican primary race despite massive deficits in public polling.
Trump has yet to announce his January fundraising. He and the RNC had a combined $41 million on hand at the end of December 2023. Monthly fundraising reports for presidential campaigns and the major party committees are due to the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday.
“While Team Biden-Harris continues to build on its fundraising machine, Republicans are divided – either spending money fighting Donald Trump, or spending money in support of Donald Trump’s extreme and losing agenda,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said. “Either way, judging from their weak fundraising, they’re already paying the political price.”
Biden’s campaign said they are combining those big checks with an increasingly strong grassroots fundraising operation. The campaign added more than 1 million additional e-mails to its fundraising list, which it says helped it set a grassroots fundraising record for the third month in a row.
“We are particularly proud that January shattered our grassroots fundraising record for a third straight month,” said TJ Ducklo, a campaign spokesman. “This haul will go directly to reaching the voters who will decide this election. That’s reason number 355 million that we are confident President Biden and Vice President Harris will win this November.”
Despite his overall fundraising advantage, Biden had fewer small dollar donors than Trump at the end of 2023. A New York Times analysis of FEC data found 668,000 donors had given less than $200 to Trump, compared to 564,000 donors who gave less than $200 to Biden.