Even as President Joe Biden has tried to fend off growing questions about his age and electability, he continued to inspire donations from supporters last month, bringing in $53 million, according to his reelection campaign.
The February haul — the combined total raised by Biden’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and authorized joint fundraising committees — is an increase from the $42 million that Biden raised in January. The campaign’s consistently strong fundraising has enabled Biden to amass $155 million in cash on hand, the largest amount any Democratic presidential candidate has ever raised at this point in the election cycle, his campaign said Sunday.
“President Biden continues to see record-breaking grassroots enthusiasm around a historic and winning agenda, while Donald Trump is poised to enter the general election broke, saddled by his unwavering support for the extremism Americans repeatedly reject at the ballot box,” Biden deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty said in a statement.
The campaign is not relying on big checks alone, suggesting that grassroots enthusiasm for the president still runs deep. In February, Biden received 562,000 contributions from 469,000 unique donors, according to the campaign. And since he began running for reelection, 97% of all individual donations were under $200.
Biden and Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, both clinched their respective party nominations on Tuesday, after primary wins enabled them to lock up a majority of convention delegates.
Neither candidate’s hold on the nomination was ever seriously in doubt, but Trump’s nearest rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, gave him a run for his money in some key states, and won Vermont and the District of Columbia. And unlike Biden, Trump has only just begun fully coordinating with the Republican National Committee.
As a result of his preoccupation with the primary, mounting legal costs and overall management failures, Trump is seriously behind Biden in fundraising. In January, he raised $8.9 million and spent more than $11 million, ending the month with just over $30 million in cash on hand.
The RNC has also struggled to raise money, bringing in less in 2023 than in any year since 2015. Trump retook control of the RNC earlier this month, appointing ally Michael Whatley as chair and daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair.
Trump’s campaign has insisted that he will not use the money from coordinated fundraising with the RNC to cover legal bills. But through the authorized Save America PAC and the Make America Great Again PAC — a super PAC that is technically barred from coordinating with Trump — Trump spent more than $54 million of donors’ money on legal bills in 2023.
For his part, Biden has been trying to capitalize on momentum generated by his aggressive State of the Union speech earlier this month. He has been hitting the road more, and is funding a $30 million ad blitz contrasting himself with Trump in seven battleground states.