The November election continues to approach despite the focus on the crisis response and it looks like it will be Trump versus Biden.
Fundraising will still be critical and a new report shows that the Trump campaign leads the Biden campaign by nearly $200 million.
According to Fox News:
After accounting for debt owed by the DNC, Biden and the DNC have a combined $57 million cash on hand as of the end of March. That pales in comparison to the $240 million the Trump campaign and RNC had in the bank at the end of March, according to a release from the Trump campaign earlier this month.
In March alone, this campaign raised $46.7 million, with 70% from online donations. This virus has changed our campaign. But it hasn’t changed the unwavering support we’ve gotten from all of you. Together, we’re going to defeat Trump. Help keep us going: https://t.co/GIzEQS0nNj
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 21, 2020
Trump has an advantage over Biden in that he is the incumbent and the GOP has had over three years to plan for his reelection campaign, whereas Biden has been the presumptive Democratic nominee for just a couple weeks. Trump and the RNC, for example, have a joint fundraising committee — something that has not yet been set up between Biden and the DNC but is expected to happen in the near future.
But the roughly $180 million advantage for Trump and the GOP underscores some of the challenges the Biden campaign faces as the general election begins to heat up. Biden is essentially sequestered to his home in Delaware for the near future due to the coronavirus pandemic, running virtual fundraising events and communicating with supporters via social media and interviews with the press. Trump, on the other hand, is on national television running his coronavirus task force briefings for often over an hour per day while the massive apparatus of the RNC and his campaign take care of fundraising.
“Americans can see President Trump leading this nation through a serious crisis and they are responding with their continued enthusiastic support for his re-election,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said when the Trump campaign announced its latest financial update earlier this month. “Joe Biden, Democrats, and the media continue to oppose his every action, but the people know that President Trump is fighting for them so they are fighting for him as well.”
Huge Q1 for @GOP/@TeamTrump fundraising. As Pres @realDonaldTrump leads our nation through this crisis, our team is committed to ensuring the President’s campaign has the fuel in the tank for Nov.
?$240M COH
?$677M+ Raised TD
?$56M Increase Over Q4 ’19https://t.co/iKWt1fnKon— Kimberly Guilfoyle (@kimguilfoyle) April 13, 2020
Democrats have historically outraised Republicans and with the party coming together behind Biden it remains to be seen if he can close the gap.
