With the help of his former boss, presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden raised a record $ 11 million on Tuesday at a fundraiser jointly organized by former President Obama.
The journey in grassroots fundraising – $ 7.6 million from 175,000 grassroots supporters and other top-tier donors – breaks the former vice president’s previous record, set earlier this month in a fundraiser organized by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a one-time rival during the Democratic presidential primaries.
Biden and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) outperformed President Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC) in fundraising in May, but the Republican incumbent in the White House and RNC still have a huge cash advantage over the challenger. Democrat and The DNC.
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The Trump campaign noted it raised $ 10 million around Saturday’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the president’s first since the coronavirus pandemic spread across the country in March. And it generated $ 14 million a week earlier, around Trump’s 74th birthday.
The former president told the approximately 120,000 people who participated in the fundraising that “there is no one I trust more to heal this country and get it back on track than my dear friend Joe Biden.”
But highlighting what was at stake in the November presidential election, he emphasized that “this is serious business” and emphasized to supporters that “what I have done so far is not enough. And I stick with myself, Michelle and my children on the same level. “
Painting a bleak picture of a country facing the worst pandemic in a century and racial unrest, Obama argued that Biden, if elected, will inherit a tougher situation than when he entered the White House.
“Things were tough in 2008, 2009. We were going through the worst recessions since the Great Depression, a massive financial crisis that we were still in the midst of two wars. We are going through a decade in which the possibilities of common work and common purpose have been reduced and degraded and the government has been deprived of the necessary resources to make us a more egalitarian, just and compassionate society, “said Obama. “And yet I must say that the foundations of the institutions we had were still more or less intact.”
And pointing to former President George W. Bush, Obama noted that “my predecessor, who disagreed on a large number of issues, still had a basic respect for the rule of law and the importance of our institutions … There were ideals shared human rights and the rule of law. “
Obama argued that Biden would take over the White House from a president who is undermining the “foundation” of the country.
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Targeting Trump without naming the president, Obama said his successor in the White House “suggests that facts don’t matter, science doesn’t matter … suggests that deadly disease is fake news.” That sees the Justice Department as simply an extension and arm of the President’s personal concerns. That actively promotes division and sees some people in this country as more real as Americans than others. “
But Obama also made a positive note, saying what makes him optimistic about the future “is the fact that a great awakening is taking place across the country, particularly among younger people, who say they are not just fed up with the insanity., a disorganized and petty approach to governance that we have seen in recent years but, more than that, we are eager to take on some of the core challenges this country has faced for centuries. “
After the former president and former vice president answered questions from the audience, Obama jumped up as Biden was wrapping up the event to say “I love you, Joe.”
“I love you, too, friend,” Biden replied.
For Obama, the virtual event marked a return to the presidential campaign. It was the former president’s first event for Biden since he supported his right-hand man in the White House for 8 years. Obama remained neutral in the open primary Democratic race, which at one point had a roster of more than two dozen candidates. He backed Biden in April after former vice president’s final rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, suspended his campaign and backed Biden.
The joint fundraiser was expected to kick off a busy agenda for the busy former president slated for the fall on behalf of Biden and the negative-voting Democrats.
A Democratic strategist familiar with Obama’s thinking told Fox News that “Tuesday’s grassroots fundraiser is a smart first campaign event for President Obama: it helps direct resources to the campaign while reinforcing his messages deeply. rooted in all of his public life: the importance of grassroots, building a movement, getting involved. “
The strategist, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, noted that in 2018 Obama “was the most requested substitute in the country.” His approval rating is 20 points higher than President Trump. And in 2020, there is no one better positioned to defend Joe Biden. “
While political strategists and experts agree that an active Obama can only help Biden, as well as the candidates on the ballot this fall, in the end, there is only so much that a substitute can do. Then-President Obama aggressively assaulted Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election, but the Democratic candidate fell short.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign hit Biden for Obama’s help.
“President Barack Obama’s appeal cannot yet give the Biden campaign the unprecedented level of enthusiasm we see every night from millions of supporters of President Trump,” said Trump campaign deputy press secretary Ken Farnaso, earlier of the event.
“President Trump built a historically strong economy once and is doing it again. In contrast, the sad Obama / Biden record of record economic recovery and high taxes devastated our economy and in November the American people will not put our country in the hands of that same failed leadership. “
Obama’s appearance at Tuesday’s fundraiser was much more than setting a campaign cash record.
It occurs when Biden continues to reach the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, as well as the voters who backed Obama in 2008 and 2012, but voted for President Trump in 2016.
“Now that the primary season is over, President Obama can play the role of chief unifier within the Democratic Party,” said Mo Elleithee, founding executive director of the Georgetown University Institute for Policy and Public Service and a contributor to Fox News .
Elleithee, lead spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, who later served as communications director for the Democratic National Committee, said Obama is also “an important voice during these tumultuous times.” As polls show that President Trump’s handling of crises is declining, President Obama can help defend Joe Biden’s very different approach. “
Strategic communications consultant Ben LaBolt, an Obama White House veteran who served as national press secretary for the president’s 2012 re-election campaign, emphasized that his former boss can do what no one else can do to help Biden.
“Barack Obama is in a unique position to defend the case of Joe Biden’s time in the executive branch,” LaBolt told Fox News. “President Obama appointed Joe Biden to lead the economic recovery the last time we were on the brink of a major depression, they worked together to rescue the auto industry, provide health care coverage to millions of Americans, and prevent Ebola from becoming in a pandemic in the United States “
