Dems fear Biden’s fundraising is ‘cratering’
Giving among both big- and small-dollar donors has slowed, according to six Democratic advisers and operatives who work with donors.
President Joe Biden is quickly losing access to the money he will need to stay in the presidential race as a growing number of prominent Democratic officials and donors call for him to drop out.
Money has started to dry up following his disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump, when the president struggled to respond to his opponent’s barrage of verbal attacks and gave incoherent answers, said six Democratic advisers and operatives who work with major donors. Some fundraisers have been canceled, while some donors have threatened to withhold donations until the president drops out, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal party matters.
The problem isn’t limited to the party’s big-donor class. Small-dollar fundraising has also dipped in recent days, according to one person with direct knowledge of the internal campaign data. The campaign is now projecting that grassroots fundraising will drop at least 20 to 25 percent over the rest of the month, according to this person.
“This is a massive, massive problem,” the person said. “Right now, we should be scaling up, doubling and tripling our goals as we head into the fall. But we’re cratering.”
The erosion of financial support is an existential threat to Biden’s reelection campaign, even as he argues that he has the best chances of any Democrat of beating Trump.
Since the president’s poor debate performance, the Biden campaign has trumpeted their low-dollar fundraising, confirming that they had brought in $38 million in the days immediately following it. The president himself touted those totals as proof that Democratic Party voters — including those who give less than $200 — still backed his bid, even as a growing number of elected officials and pundits raised serious concerns about his candidacy and some have called for him to step aside.
But after the initial small-dollar spike, the Biden operation is now having to make “massive revisions downward” for grassroots fundraising, the person said.
In a statement, senior Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt asserted “those numbers are not accurate.”
“On grassroots fundraising, the first seven days of July were the best start to [a] month on the campaign — and many of those were first-time donors,” she said. “On the high-dollar side, we’ve had folks max out since the debate, as well.”
The drop in fundraising reflects a decline in Democratic base support but also poses a new problem for Biden: If he stays in the race, he would need more dollars to make up for the damage done by the debate and the criticism from Democrats who want him to step aside.
“They’re hoping they can be bailed out by grassroots donors,” said a Democratic donor adviser. “I don’t see any evidence of that working.”
And among high-dollar donors, discontent is high. “Every single person I’ve talked to says, ‘this is not tenable. We can’t raise any money. It’s impossible.’ These are the same people who were in Atlanta for the watch party at the debate,” said a Democratic operative who works with major Democratic donors.
“We can’t find any money,” the person said.
Some of that anger is leaking into public view. Actor George Clooney, who hosted a $28 million Hollywood fundraiser for the president last month, wrote in a New York Times op-ed the president “was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” Director Rob Reiner, another Democratic donor, echoed Clooney’s concerns in a post on X. Tech executive Bill Harris, along with a few other donors, is pledging $2 million to help fund a mini-primary to replace Biden.
“From folks on the fundraising team, they are in five-alarm fire mode and have dramatically lowered their raise goals for each event,” said another Democratic operative in regular contact with the campaign. “They also fear that this will be their worst high-dollar month yet.”
Biden is scheduled to appear at several high-dollar fundraisers this month, including one in Austin early next week, and a West Coast swing is scheduled, according to a source familiar with the planning of the events.
On Monday, Dmitri Mehlhorn, an adviser to LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic mega-donor Reid Hoffman, wrote an email to other donors and leaders, urging them to continue to back Biden and arguing that “2024 is the same binary choice as in 2020.”
Biden sought to calm top donors as recently as Monday, when he took questions from them during a Zoom meeting with his National Finance Committee. During the call, he told donors that he was “done talking about the debate,” imploring them to move forward and focus on defeating former President Donald Trump.
Some donors, however, were “insulted” by the Monday call, when Biden “read from a script” and “took questions from loyalists,” said another Democratic strategist who works with donors. “They feel like the campaign has hoodwinked them.”
Biden’s efforts to keep the Democratic Party doubters appeared to be working as recently as Tuesday, when the flow of Democratic lawmakers calling for him to step aside quieted to a trickle. But panic flared again on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, particularly after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declined to express affirmative support for Biden’s campaign in an interview with MSNBC, and Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) became the first Democratic senator to call on Biden to drop out.