In the wake of several videos that were released last week showing a dazed and confused Joe Biden freezing, stumbling about, and barely able to string a coherent sentence together, his lead over Donald Trump in cash is no more, with the former president now exceeding Biden’s fundraising.
Just about a month or so ago, Joe Biden’s campaign planned to bury Donald Trump in an avalanche of cash. Instead, now his allies are bracing for a slugfest without the benefit of their once fatter wallet.
The latest financial reports showed Trump outraising Biden in back-to-back months, hauling in huge sums of cash after his 34 felony convictions and totally erasing Biden’s longstanding financial edge. This is the first time since the start of the general election campaign, that Biden is running behind in the money race. In the reports filed last week, Trump and the Republican National Committee were sitting on $116.5 million in cash, while Biden and the Democratic National Committee have $91.6 million in the bank.
Democrats have been largely downplaying Trump’s new financial lead in the same way Trump’s allies had when Biden was running ahead in the money race — saying the president would have more than enough money to stay competitive.
“Our campaign, from the moment we’ve started, is more focused on what we’re doing with our resources, rather than trying to play a game of who’s raising what,” Quentin Fulks, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, said in an interview with POLITICO. “That is where our investments are going, directly into field [operations].”
But privately, several Democratic strategists and donors were reeling.
“There was the strategy of raising all this money on the front end so we could have this huge edge,” said one Biden bundler, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “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.”
Another major Biden bundler, also granted anonymity, called the development “disappointing, but not surprising.”
Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said, “From fundraising, polling, crowds at public events or enthusiasm across the board with America’s voters, there is more and more evidence that the momentum of President Trump coming out of a historic primary election season is growing as we move to November. The latest surge in fundraising and wiping out the [Biden campaign’s] cash advantage in May reflects this.”