President Joe Biden’s campaign and affiliated fundraising committees that power the Democratic National Committee and state parties raised $97 million in the final three months of 2023, the campaign announced Monday, citing a major shutdown push. small donors.
Biden’s campaign also announced that his political machine had $117 million available to spend at the start of 2024, sending a signal about what the eventual Republican nominee will face just as the GOP begins its nominating process Monday with the Iowa caucuses.
The haul comes on top of the $72 million and $71 million that Biden for president, the Democratic National Committee and joint fundraising committees that feed state Democratic Party organizations raised in the second and third fundraising periods. , respectively. Exactly how much the respective fundraising entities raised will not be known until the campaign submits its year-end reports to the Federal Electoral Committee, which are due on January 31.
“This historic run, proudly fueled by strong and growing popular enthusiasm, sends a clear message: the Team Biden-Harris coalition knows what is at stake in this election and is ready to win in November,” said campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez in a statement. “Our democracy and our hard-fought basic rights and freedoms will be at stake in 2024, and these numbers demonstrate that the American people know what is at stake and are taking early action to help defeat again the extreme Republican agenda of the MAGA.”
The surge in fundraising to end the year also coincided with the end of the Hollywood writers’ strike at the end of September. The president, Vice President Kamala Harris and other top representatives held no major events in Southern California during the nearly five months of standoff.
Since Biden announced his re-election campaign in late April, 1 million supporters have made 2.3 million donations, according to the campaign, and 130,000 so-called supportive donors contribute monthly. The average base donation in the fourth quarter was $41.88, according to the campaign.
Small donations accelerated as the Republican field challenging former President Donald Trump began to dwindle, the campaign says. And a campaign spokesperson predicted his fundraising would “outperform” the field of GOP candidates “several times over.”
A direct comparison cannot be made with the Republican field at this time because Republican candidates are not yet fundraising in concert with the Republican National Committee or state parties. But they are spending a lot of money in the nomination race, and although Biden spent millions on advertising last year, he is already strengthening his accounts for the general election fight.
The Biden campaign’s total cash on hand grew each quarter last year, as the campaign expanded its operations more slowly and focused its biggest spending on an early television campaign.
Some Democrats have expressed concern about the lack of infrastructure in the battleground states. The campaign has said it is now beginning to expand state by state, with leadership in early voting states on the Democratic primary calendar.