Throughout this election cycle, Donald Trump has been passed by Joe Biden in terms of fundraising.
That changed dramatically this last cycle, with Trump finally outraising the Biden campaign.
Talking Points…
- Falling behind
- Trump has a huge month
- Analysis
When you looked at the numbers heading into the last month, Donald Trump was getting crushed on all fronts by the Democrat Party and Joe Biden. Biden had a considerable advantage of not having a primary race, so all of the Democrat money was going into one campaign. That allowed Biden to amass a significant war chest, of which he did not have to spend a penny.
At one point, Biden had nearly $100 million more than Trump, and that was after taking out a $30 million ad buy to attack Trump. Biden also has the benefit of having Hollywood behind him, where some massive fundraisers have been taking place on his behalf, with another one scheduled by George Clooney later this month.
Biden has consistently raised nearly $100 million a month, while Trump’s numbers have been around $60 million or so. However, now that we are down to only one candidate, the megadonors are starting to align with the Trump campaign, and it has made a huge difference in terms of cash on hand for Donald Trump.
March was not a good sign for Trump, as the race had already been narrowed down. Even so, Trump and the RNC had only raised about $65 million compared to Biden and the DNC raising about $90 million. This brought Trump’s cash on hand up to $93 million, with Biden sitting at $192 million. And remember, Trump has also been paying legal bills from campaign cash, giving Biden a significant advantage.
That started to change last month, with Trump’s numbers going up and Biden’s numbers going dramatically down. Trump and the RNC raised about $76 million last month, with Biden and the DNC raising only $51 million, roughly half of the numbers we have seen from the Biden campaign over the last several months. The difference maker appears to be that Biden did not have a big fundraiser last month, which he will have in May.
This may also have something to do with polling, as Democrats are starting to lose hope that Biden can beat Trump, so why flush money? However, The Biden campaign is cherry-picking polls to say they are actually turning this around. For instance, at a recent fundraiser, Biden told the crowd:
“While the press doesn’t write about it, the momentum is clearly in our favor, with the polls moving towards us and away from Trump.”
Biden was referring to the one poll, the PBS-Marist poll, that had him leading Trump. However, that poll appears to be an outlier. If you go on FiveThirtyEight, Joe Biden is trailing Trump, which is six of the last seven polls that were taken. This led to Biden simply making up his own reality, telling his supporters:
“We run strongest among likely voters in the polling data.
“And while the national polls basically have us (among) registered voters up by four, (among) likely voters we’re up by more.”
I don’t want to paint the picture that Donald Trump is whipping Joe Biden because that is not true, but he is leading him in most battleground polling, which is what will win or lose this election. If the numbers hold true, Trump would squeak out wins in those states, creating a landslide in terms of the electoral college vote. There are still a lot of votes on the sidelines, but my guess is that most of them are waiting to see how Trump’s legal problems will play out. If Trump’s hush-money case falls the way I think it will, we will see a big push for Trump in May and June polling, which could hurt Biden’s fundraising even more.
