Biden and DNC bring in $72M in second quarter

President Joe Biden, the Democratic National Committee and their joint fundraising committees raised a combined $72 million in the second quarter of the year, his campaign said Friday.

Biden also revealed that 394,000 donors contributed to him, the DNC and their committees. The entities together had a combined $77 million in cash on hand as of June 30, when the latest fundraising period ended.

The announcement marks the first time that Biden has given a peek inside his war chest since he first kicked off his reelection campaign in late April — and it is less compared to other recent presidents’ hauls at this point in the cycle.

In 2019, then-President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $105 million in the second quarter. In 2011, then-President Barack Obama and the DNC brought in more than $86 million. Obama launched his reelection bid in early April of that year, while Trump kicked off the campaign for his second term in mid-June, though he was accepting money prior to that date.

According to the Biden campaign, 97 percent of all the donations during the second quarter were under $200, and 30 percent of the “donor universe” were new donors since the 2020 campaign. The campaign says its 2024 email list includes close to 25 million subscribers. But Biden’s small-dollar operation, at least currently, is smaller than his former boss’. In 2011, more than 552,000 donors contributed to Obama in the second quarter.

One of Biden’s strengths this quarter is his cash on hand, which is higher than Obama’s at this time in the cycle. Biden has been running a lean campaign in this early stage of the presidential election, hiring few staff and not yet announcing a headquarters. His first political rally of his reelection bid was paid for by labor unions.

“In my world, we actually have a single word for when something like this happens: It’s called a blockbuster,” said Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, Biden’s campaign co-chair. “Importantly, this is the first real referendum on President Biden’s job that he’s doing. And it’s a record-setting landslide.”

Asked about the fact that Obama outpaced Biden at this point in 2011 when it came to his number of donors, Katzenberg argued that the president’s filing shows that he is a strong small-dollar fundraiser.

“You are having a really, really hard time trying to find a way to put some gray cloud over these numbers,” he said, adding that it is a different era than in 2011: “I don’t believe we were at war at the time. I don’t believe that we were having the sort of divisiveness that we have. The world's a different place.”

In the weeks preceding the end of this fundraising cycle, Democratic donors had expressed anxiety about Biden’s fundraising. The president has struggled to raise money in the past, and declined to reveal how much money he brought in this year during the first 24 hours of his reelection campaign. Some of his fundraisers also said it was a challenge to sell tickets to a few of his campaign’s recent events.

But Biden allies have cautioned against measuring his fundraising hauls against Trump or Obama’s, arguing that they are not apples-to-apples comparisons. For example, they said, Obama jumped into the race in 2011 three weeks earlier than Biden.

Even with those notes of caution, Biden officials on Friday touted the fact that, on a per-day basis, Biden’s second quarter haul was larger than Obama’s. Unstated was that Biden is also operating under looser limits over the money he and the DNC can raise. In 2011, individual donations were capped at $2,500 while donations to the national party committee were capped at $30,800. Today, those caps are $3,300 and $41,300, respectively.

Biden officials also said that their “Dark Brandon” merchandise had been particularly successful, driving more than half of their store revenue this past quarter.

In the days preceding the president’s announcement, one Biden fundraiser said that they were worried because they had heard little from the campaign about how things were going.

“It’s a little concerning because when I tell you we’ve gotten zero information, I found out more this morning from POLITICO,” the person said, referring to a report about what to look for in Biden’s financial report. “Nothing that says, ‘Great quarter. We’re going to get you more’ or whatever. There’s just been silence. And as you well know, there were no marching bands in the first 24 hours.”

One of Biden’s strengths this quarter is his cash on hand. Biden has been running a lean campaign in this early stage of the presidential election, hiring few staff and not yet announcing a headquarters. His first political rally of his reelection bid was paid for by labor unions.

Meanwhile, Republicans vying to oust Biden are in a fierce competition for cash. Trump officials said earlier this month that his joint fundraising committee brought in $35 million in the second quarter of 2023, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign said it raised $20 million in the first six weeks since he launched.