Biden campaign raises less cash than Trump for the first time

The Biden campaign has raised less cash than the Trump campaign for the first time as the two 2020 rivals prepare to face off again this November.

Last month, the Biden campaign raised more than $51m, far below the $90m haul it took in in March, President Joe Biden’s campaign revealed.

The haul was also significantly lower than the $76m raised by the campaign of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, after the former president boosted his effort with the Republican National Committee (RNC) and attended major fundraisers.

But Democrats still lead Republicans in overall cash and Mr Biden himself has significantly more cash than Mr Trump.

The Biden campaign reported overall having $84m at the end of April, while Mr Trump reported having $49m.

Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said that if you include the Democratic National Committee and other aligned groups, the Biden campaign had actually racked up $192m at the end of last month.

On Monday, the Biden campaign revealed that it had its strongest month so far for recurring donors with a haul of $5.5m. According to the campaign, more than 225,000 donors have said they will give every month, which is 1.5 times more than at this time during the last election cycle.

The Biden campaign managed to rake in the cash in March after Mr Biden’s feisty State of the Union address, fundraising in eight key states, and a star-studded campaign fundraiser with former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton which took in $26m alone.

The Biden campaign is set to host another star-studded fundraiser next month in Los Angeles with actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts.

After securing the Republican presidential nomination in March, Mr Trump is now able to raise cash jointly with the RNC. His daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, was appointed co-chair of the RNC earlier this year.

Two-thirds of Mr Trump’s April haul came from a single fundraiser held at the Palm Beach home of investor and billionaire John Paulson, which raised $50.5m. Mr Trump has suggested that Mr Paulson could be rewarded with the role of treasury secretary during a possible second Trump term in the White House, Reuters noted.

Up to now, Mr Trump has lagged behind Mr Biden in the money game, with the $50.5m fundraiser almost single-handedly helping him beat the Biden campaign in April. It remains unclear if he’ll be able to continue to outraise Mr Biden without such massive fundraisers boosting his bank account each month.

This comes as the former president is facing some financial trouble because of increasing legal fees stemming from his civil and criminal court cases.

Mr Trump’s Save America PAC stated in a Federal Election Commission filing on Monday that it had paid more than $3.3m in legal fees during the month.

The Trump campaign claimed that the fundraising last month was particularly “remarkable when you consider he has been confined to a courtroom for nearly 9 hours a day over the past four weeks”.

The campaign said in March that, while it wouldn’t be able to compete with Mr Biden’s fundraising totals, Mr Trump still won the electoral college in 2016 even after raising less cash than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton – though she actually received nearly three million more votes than Mr Trump.

In 2020, Mr Biden managed to win by small margins in key states to win the electoral college even after claiming seven million more votes than Mr Trump nationally.

While Mr Biden and Mr Trump have been largely tied in national polls, Mr Trump has been in the lead in several battleground states which are set to decide the election in November.