Throughout the second quarter, Biden and the DNC together raised more than $ 53 million from more than 200 donors who gave at least $ 100,000 each. The biggest donors among them, who gave at least $ 500,000, included philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, financier George Soros, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Hollywood producer and founder of the streaming platform Quibi. More than 370 people donated at least $ 50,000, a list that includes billionaires, CEOs, and business leaders from New York to California.
Trump’s financial advantage has been one of the few remaining advantages in a 2020 race that has turned sharply against him, and the erosion of that Biden advantage comes at a critical time in the election. Both campaigns are initiating billions of TV ad campaigns in battlefield states, and Biden is rapidly expanding his campaign staff to coincide with Trump’s professional and well-funded operation.
Biden’s dizzying fundraising faucet, a sudden turnaround from the primary, when the former vice president generally lagged behind his Democratic cash rivals, comes as he enjoys a consistent lead over Trump in a series of national polls, some of which show it by two digits.
“As he goes from a 9-point lead to a 10-to-11 point lead in national polls, even people who don’t vote for him will give him money. It’s called coverage, ”said John Morgan, a Florida-based Biden fundraiser, noting that there is a growing sense of” inevitability “around Biden among high-dollar donors.
Half of the donors who gave the maximum amount to Biden and the DNC come from Silicon Valley, a technology money center that has favored Democratic candidates, but who viewed cautiously some 2020 presidential contenders during the primaries, where the stricter technological regulation was a hot topic.
“He keeps the metal pedal down in fundraising,” said former ambassador Tod Sedgwick, a Biden donor. Substitute events or events with the Vice President or with Dr. [Jill] Biden: They happen almost every day. ”
Biden’s campaign also touted his burgeoning small dollar fundraiser, a network that has exploded to include 3 million unique donors, after the campaign increased its presence with Facebook and Google ads. O’Malley Dillon wrote in a series of tweets that last month, 97 percent of the campaign’s fundraiser “came from grassroots donors.”
But most notably, in the past two months, Biden was able to start raising money in conjunction with the DNC after locking up the Democratic nomination, increasing the limits that high-dollar donors can give the campaign and the party to $ 620,600, according to Federal Presentations of the Electoral Commission. Some of that money is restricted for use in matters such as legal cases, counts, or convention planning. But it all somehow flows into the 2020 Democratic machine.
Morgan noted that Greg Schultz, the former Biden campaign manager who moved to the DNC, is working to “help coordinate these big dollar checks,” he said.
Several super PACs also released their monthly reports on Wednesday, reinforcing the high-budget Democratic navy preparing to take on Trump in November.
Priorities USA Action, the core group supporting the Biden campaign, will not present its next financial report until Monday. But American Bridge, another anti-Trump super PAC, raised $ 18 million in the last quarter. A portion of the group’s funds, totaling $ 5.7 million, was channeled through a non-profit organization, called the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is not required to disclose to its donors.
The Lincoln Project, a Republican-led anti-Trump group, raised nearly $ 17 million in the last quarter, a jump over its previous totals. The group has become known for its edgy and viral videos that attack Trump, but they still don’t have a significant presence on television. It spent just $ 2.75 million on television commercials, well below other outside group spending.
Still, the Lincoln Project attracted several Democratic donors, including $ 100,000 from Hollywood producer David Geffen and $ 50,000 from Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist.
