The US president had reportedly banked on having a huge financial advantage after his Republican rival’s criminal conviction
US President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has reportedly been thrown for a loop by Donald Trump’s recent fundraising successes because the incumbent’s team was banking on gaining a huge financial edge after the Republican challenger was convicted on 34 felony charges.
The Biden team planned to bury the ex-president’s campaign in “an avalanche of cash” heading into the latter months of the 2024 race, Politico reported on Sunday. Instead, Trump has outraised Biden for two straight months, eliminating the incumbent’s financial advantage, even after a New York City jury found him guilty in late May on 34 criminal charges filed by a Democrat prosecutor.
“There was the strategy of raising all this money on the front end so we could have this huge edge,” an unidentified Democrat fundraiser told Politico. “The whole point of it was to come out with a sizable cash advantage and, you know, we’re now even, and it’s June . . . . I have no other word for it other than ‘depression’ among Biden supporters.”
The Trump campaign reportedly raised nearly $53 million in the first 24 hours after his guilty verdict for falsifying business records was announced, tripling his previous single-day record. In the weeks since then, he and the political action committees backing him have continued to bring in huge cash hauls, including $50 million from megadonor Timothy Melon. Republicans raked in over $141 million in May, exceeding the $85 million raised by Democrats.
Trump has portrayed the New York criminal case and the three other indictments brought against him in the past year as efforts by Biden-supporting prosecutors to interfere in the 2024 presidential election. His campaign seized upon that theme following the jury’s verdict, citing it in fundraising emails and other advertisements.
Venture capitalist David Sacks was among the donors who reacted to the New York trial, calling it a “sham.” He added, “There is now only one issue in this election: whether the American people will stand for the USA becoming a Banana Republic.”
Biden donors told Politico that they had expected the Trump campaign to catch up financially later this year, after next month’s Republican nominating convention. Following Trump’s surprise fundraising surge, the outlet said, Biden’s allies are “bracing for a slugfest without the benefit of a fatter wallet.”
The Biden campaign raised about $30 million earlier this month in a Hollywood fundraising event featuring former President Barack Obama and actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts. Although some recent polls have shown that Biden is gaining ground in the race, surveys by Emerson College and The Hill media outlet showed that the Republican is leading in all of the so-called “swing states,” which are expected to decide the election.