President Joe Biden, the Democratic National Committee and other coordinated campaign entities jointly raised $72 million in the second quarter of the year, the Biden campaign announced Friday.
The haul brings Biden’s total cash on hand to $77 million, and gives him an edge over his two leading Republican challengers, former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). Trump raised $35 million and DeSantis raised $20 million over the same period.
“We’ve seen incredible enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice President Harris’ agenda — including their commitment to restoring democracy, fighting for more freedoms and growing the economy by growing the middle class,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “While Republicans are burning through resources in a divisive primary focused on who can take the most extreme MAGA positions, we are significantly outraising every single one of them – because our team’s strength is our grassroots supporters.”
Biden’s team is keen to emphasize the extent of grassroots support for the campaign, noting that more than 394,000 donors made 670,000 contributions. Ninety-seven percent of donations were under $200, according to Biden’s campaign.
Since announcing his bid for a second term in late April, Biden’s team has been eager to demonstrate its strength — both to the broader electorate and to some Democrats fretful about his ability to hold on to the White House. They have sought to assuage Democratic voters’ fears about his age and acuity, and shut out chatter about alternative nominees embodied by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s idiosyncratic campaign.
The campaign claimed Friday that Biden’s $77 million in cash on hand is the “highest total amassed by a Democrat at any comparable point in history.” The technical term “cash on hand” simply means the campaign’s accumulated fundraising less its expenditures to date. It is a metric that campaign experts often examine as evidence that fundraising is keeping pace with spending.
Other sitting presidents have nonetheless raised more than Biden has at this point in his reelection campaign. In the second quarter of 2011, then-President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign and the DNC jointly raised $86 million. And in the second quarter of 2019, Trump and the Republican National Committee jointly raised $105 million.
