Biden reelection campaign struggling to gain small donors compared to past presidents
Rachel Schilke
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President Joe Biden‘s campaign is touting high fundraising totals, but few of the donations came from small donors, showing that the president may be struggling more to appeal to the individual donor base than he did in 2020.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, in tandem with the broader Democratic Party, raised more than $72 million since the president announced his reelection campaign in April. However, most of the donations came from wealthy donors, and nearly a third of the 394,000 total donors did not contribute to Biden during the 2020 election.
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The small-donor base that helped Biden win against former President Donald Trump in 2020, and Democrats maintain a majority in the Senate during the 2022 midterm elections, has not yet turned on their financial taps for the 2024 election.
The Biden campaign and the Biden Victory Fund, its joint fund-raising group, raised $10.2 million from small donors — those who gave $200 or less — during the three-month fund-raising period that ended June 30, according to the Federal Election Commission.
However, the 2020 and 2022 elections were fueled by social and cultural issues: Democrats wanting to remove Trump from office, the calls of election fraud, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
Biden has also maintained a relatively low-profile reelection campaign compared to former Democratic candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and former President Barack Obama. Obama raised $21 million during his 2012 reelection campaign during the same three-month quarter.
He also is behind Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, as well. Twenty-one percent of Biden’s funds came from small donors. In 2020, 35% of Trump’s funds came from small donors.
Despite a low number of small donors, Biden is still outpacing Republican candidates’ small donor totals. Combined, GOP candidates have raised $7.5 million from small donors compared to Biden’s $10.2 million.
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“Once Democratic donors become focused on the Republican primary and what’s at stake in the 2024 election, the Biden campaign will have no problem raising record amounts of money online,” Lauren Miller, who served as digital director to Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaigns, told the New York Times.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Biden’s campaign for comment.