U.S. President Joe Biden gives a thumbs up as he departs for Japan from the White House in Washington, May 17, 2023.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have put together a 50-state joint fundraising strategy in a bid to give him an overwhelming financial edge over his potential Republican challenger.
Biden’s joint fundraising committee, the Biden Victory Fund, is now raising campaign cash with all 50 state Democratic Party committees, along with Washington D.C.’s local committee, the president’s campaign told CNBC.
The nationwide effort is shaping up to be larger than the strategy used during Biden’s 2020 run for president, when the same fundraising operation raised over $600 million and doled out millions of dollars to 47 Democratic state parties, according to data from the nonpartisan OpenSecrets. The Biden committee also helps raise money for the Democratic National Committee.
A senior DNC official told CNBC that the Biden Victory Fund, in addition to all of the state committees they worked with in 2020, will also be fundraising with committees from Iowa, California, South Dakota and Illinois. Those four state committees did not fundraise with the Biden Victory Fund in 2020, according to OpenSecrets.
The Biden team said the new effort represents the first time a candidate for president has joint fundraising agreements with every state party, along with D.C.
“While MAGA Republicans burn cash in their primary, competing for whose agenda is the most extreme, the President’s campaign will be capitalizing on the opportunity to raise significant resources that will help expand on our winning 2020 Biden coalition,” Julie C. Rodriguez, Biden’s 2024 campaign manager, said in a statement to CNBC. “Combined with our robust grassroots fundraising network, never before has a campaign had more powerful fundraising tools with a longer runway, and with freedom and democracy on the line in this election – we intend to use them.”
Biden’s campaign alone raised more than $1 billion during the 2020 election cycle. The Biden team said more than $700 million of that came from online grassroots donations. The DNC, likewise, saw over $100 million through the Biden Victory Fund and finished bringing in over $491 million during that cycle.
The beefed-up joint fundraising strategy could give Biden’s campaign and the Democratic Party a major boost for the general election. The new agreement allows the Biden Victory Fund to reap up to $929,600 from an individual donor, according to the DNC official.
The states receiving financial resources from Biden’s committees could use those funds to promote the president’s candidacy or fend off Republicans trying to flip congressional seats.
A theoretical $929,600 check would be doled out through the Biden Victory Fund to the Biden campaign ($6,600), the DNC ($41,300), with $510,000 split between all of the state parties.
The remaining funds would go to DNC auxiliary accounts, such as the fund dedicated to organizing the party’s convention.