Biden and DNC bring in $72M in second quarter

President Joe Biden, the Democratic National Committee and their joint fundraising committees raised a combined $72 million in the second quarter of the year, his campaign said Friday.

Biden also revealed that 394,000 donors contributed to him, the DNC and their committees. He and the DNC had a combined $77 million in cash on hand as of June 30, when the latest fundraising period ended.

The announcement marks the first time that Biden has given a peek inside his war chest since he first kicked off his reelection campaign in late April — and it is less compared to other recent presidents’ hauls at this point in the cycle.

In 2019, then-President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $105 million in the second quarter. In 2011, then-President Barack Obama and the DNC brought in more than $86 million. Obama launched his reelection bid in early April of that year, while Trump kicked off the campaign for his second term in mid-June, though he was accepting money prior to that date.

According to the Biden campaign, 97 percent of all the donations during the second quarter were under $200, and 30 percent of the “donor universe” were new donors since the 2020 campaign. The campaign says its 2024 email list includes close to 25 million subscribers. But Biden’s small-dollar operation, at least currently, is smaller than his former boss’. In 2011, more than 552,000 donors contributed to Obama in the second quarter.

“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,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager.

In the weeks preceding the end of this fundraising cycle, Democratic donors had expressed anxiety about Biden’s fundraising. The president has struggled to raise money in the past, and declined to reveal how much money he brought in this year during the first 24 hours of his reelection campaign. Some of his fundraisers also said it was a challenge to sell tickets to a few of his campaign’s recent events.

But Biden allies have cautioned against measuring his fundraising hauls against Trump or Obama’s, arguing that they are not apples-to-apples comparisons. For example, they said, Obama jumped into the race in 2011 three weeks earlier than Biden.

In the days preceding the president’s announcement, one Biden fundraiser said that they were worried because they had heard little from the campaign about how things were going.

“It’s a little concerning because when I tell you we’ve gotten zero information, I found out more this morning from POLITICO,” the person said, referring to a report about what to look for in Biden’s financial report. “Nothing that says, ‘Great quarter. We’re going to get you more’ or whatever. There’s just been silence. And as you well know, there were no marching bands in the first 24 hours.”

One of Biden’s strengths this quarter is his cash on hand. Biden has been running a lean campaign in this early stage of the presidential election, hiring few staff and not yet announcing a headquarters. His first political rally of his reelection bid was paid for by labor unions.

“At some point, we will build out a big, substantial, competitive organization and enterprise,” Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg previously told POLITICO. “We don’t need to do that today. It literally would be a waste of money.”