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President Joe Biden speaks at the Detroit Chapter of the NAACP’s annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner on May 19, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan.
CNN
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President Joe Biden’s political campaign raised $51 million in April, a significant drop from March fundraising, according to totals released by his campaign on Monday.
Biden’s aides said his campaign and related committees still had $192 million in the bank at the end of the month. They argue that this is the highest cash on hand ever for a Democratic candidate and puts the president in a position to compete. Former President Donald Trump and virtually.
Trump’s aides said earlier this month that Trump, despite his spending sprees, stepped up joint fundraising efforts with the Republican National Committee, highlighting high-dollar fundraisers, and announced that Trump would be joining his campaign and related committees in April. It has been announced that more than $76 million has been raised for the organization. Part of his week was spent on trial in Manhattan criminal court.
Biden’s political campaign announced he would raise more than $90 million in March, with a fiery State of the Union address at the beginning of the month and a high-profile fundraiser in New York with his two predecessors at the end of the month. . former President Bill Clinton and former President Barack Obama.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt said in a statement that the former president’s fundraising record was “particularly remarkable given that he has been cooped up in a courtroom for nearly nine hours a day for the past four weeks.”
She said the money she raised in April and polling showed “the momentum is 100% on President Trump’s side.”
Fundraising has been one bright spot for the Biden campaign, which is battling persistently low polling and close races in key battleground states, and the slump is sure to cause unrest among Democrats. But Trump’s filing also highlights potential problems for his campaign. Mr. Trump’s campaign continues to spend heavily on helping the former president face his legal challenges and relatively sparingly on the day-to-day business of his campaign.
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Biden’s aides on Monday struggled to make a positive difference in the slowing pace of fundraising, pointing to small-dollar aid and signs of continued organizational strength.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement that April’s harvest reflects the “strong and consistent grassroots enthusiasm for re-election” by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. He said the Trump campaign “continues to run out of money” and “there is no ground war.”
The Biden campaign said April was its strongest month so far for regular donors, who gave more than $5.5 million. They also said the campaign added an additional 1 million supporters to their email list last month.
The Biden campaign said it used the money to build a ground operations structure with more than 150 offices and more than 500 staff in key battleground states.
Monday was the deadline for presidential campaigns and national political parties to submit monthly reports on their fundraising and spending to federal election officials, but the joint fundraising committee that each White House candidate relies on for fundraising. is not required to submit a disclosure. Federal Election Commission until July.
Mr. Trump’s campaign aides have not disclosed the total amount of cash on hand for all committees involved in his campaign, but Mr. That leaves $49.1 million left, which is only slightly better than $45.1 million. The campaign he entered as a war chest at the end of March.
Mr. Biden’s campaign ended April with $84.5 million in its coffers, a significant advantage over Mr. Trump’s war chest. Still, the gap between the two camps has narrowed slightly since March.
President Trump’s legal troubles continue to drain resources and time.
Trump’s leadership PAC, Save America, spent $3.3 million on legal fees in April, leaving about $1.1 million unpaid that month, according to new filings.
The PAC has spent about $15.6 million on legal fees this year alone and nearly $80 million on those costs so far in 2021. The largest payout in April — more than $900,000 — went to Robert & Robert, the firm representing President Trump and his family in a corporate fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Then, last month, more than $850,000 was paid to the firm of Todd Blanche, the lead attorney in Trump’s criminal hush money trial in New York. PAC ended the month with an additional $837,000 in debt to Blanche’s company.
To help pay for the lawsuit, Save America took back funds donated by Trump before he became a candidate to a Trump-aligned super PAC, MAGA Inc.
In April, MAGA refunded an additional $2.75 million to Save America, redirecting funds that could have been used to boost support for Trump to cover legal fees.
“Save America Now” is one of the beneficiaries of the joint fundraising committee that President Trump set up with the Republican National Committee and state parties to collect money from big donors, but the PAC is They face a strict limit on the amount they can receive: $5,000. .
Both presidential candidates have been fundraising in recent weeks. Mr. Biden is scheduled to attend a fundraiser in Los Angeles next month with Mr. Obama and actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
Monday’s filing also highlighted how a small number of wealthy individuals are funding Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s strong independent bid for the White House.
American Values 2024, a pro-Kennedy super PAC, last month received $5 million from Timothy Mellon, heir to a historic banking fortune and a major supporter of President Trump, 80% of the money it had raised in that period. above) was received. Other Republican candidates and their causes.
With this latest donation, Mellon has donated a total of $25 million to pro-Kennedy groups, drawing criticism from Democrats concerned about Kennedy’s role as a spoiler in the close race between Biden and Trump. There is.
The Kennedy campaign, meanwhile, raised about $10.7 million in April, mostly from an $8 million donation from vice presidential candidate Nicole Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley patent attorney.
This article and heading have been updated with additional information.
