If it seems like people aren’t exactly ecstatic about Joe Biden, the latest fundraising numbers should remove all doubt.
Biden has always been a lackluster fundraiser whose campaign has had money woes throughout the Democratic primaries. Only the reluctant support of the Party establishment allowed him to prevail in the race against Senator Bernie Sanders and his army of enthusiastic small-dollar donors.
After the carefully timed withdrawals of Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg, and Pete Buttigieg handed Biden the presumptive nomination, the Democrat establishment clearly hoped that Sleepy Joe would finally start amassing a serious war chest. Initially, it seemed as though Biden might actually come through. Now that the final figures for March are in, however, it’s obvious that the enthusiasm just isn’t there.
The Democrat Party bosses got the candidate they wanted, but it’s not a candidate who inspires the kind of support necessary to defeat Donald Trump.
Biden took in a little under $47 million in March, according to recently released reports — more than $20 million less than Hillary Clinton raised in her first month as the Democrats’ presumptive nominee four years ago. In fact, it’s about the same amount that Bernie Sanders raised in March 2016, when he was still an underdog battling Clinton for the nomination.
Biden’s defenders will try to explain this away as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, but the Republican National Committee somehow managed to set a new March fundraising record by raking in $24 million dollars — almost the same amount it raised in pre-pandemic February — on top of $39 million of fundraising from the President’s own campaign committees.
The Democratic National Committee theoretically “raised” $32.7 million, but that figure is a mirage. More than half of that money, $18 million, is a bailout from Mike Bloomberg, who found a way to circumvent individual contribution limits by handing the DNC the funds left over from his almost entirely self-financed attempt to buy the Democratic nomination.
It’s a bailout the Democrats desperately needed, but it’s still not nearly enough. All told, their effort to elect Joe Biden has only $57.2 million on hand.
President Trump has more than four times that amount, and a steady, sustained outpouring of support from donors large and small continues to replenish his coffers. Three quarters of the RNC’s donations were $200 or less.
It’s difficult to overstate the significance of the funding gap. Even if both the RNC and the Trump Campaign were to suddenly stop accepting donations, Biden and the Democrats would have to raise about $1 million each and every day between now and Election Day just to catch up.
Democrats were clearly hoping that “anybody but Trump” was a message that could carry them to victory, no matter how boring and inept their nominee. That’s proving to be wishful thinking, with unified establishment support for Sleepy Joe’s candidacy failing to translate into grassroots enthusiasm.
“Keep America Great,” on the other hand, has already proven to be a message that a broad-based populist movement can get behind — perhaps even more so than the original “Make America Great Again” slogan from four years ago. We’ve raised over $270 million more than Barack Obama — widely considered a prodigious and effective campaigner — had at this point in his successful 2012 re-election bid.
The Trump Campaign’s recent conversion to an all-digital strategy means we’ve also switched over to virtual fundraisers, and the results have been highly encouraging so far. While Biden’s fundraising continues to slump, money keeps pouring in to support the President’s re-election efforts.
With everybody understandably concerned about the coronavirus pandemic, which is destroying lives and livelihoods alike, our continued fundraising strength is a clear sign that people are placing their trust in Donald Trump to lead our country through the crisis. Every donation is like an investment in the Second Great American Comeback that will come quickly on the heels of the pandemic — as long as Donald J. Trump is still in the White House to direct our recovery.
Money isn’t everything, of course, but it can offer valuable insights into the relative enthusiasm voters have for competing candidates. Common sense strongly suggests that President Trump’s exhaustive daily briefings alongside the White House Coronavirus Task Force are getting a much better reception than Sleepy Joe’s rambling, often incoherent broadcasts from his basement. The March fundraising numbers prove it.
Kimberly Guilfoyle (@KimGuilfoyle) is a Senior Advisor to Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. and National Chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committee.
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