The Slatest

Biden and Democrats Announce Another Record-Breaking Fundraising Month

A giant TV screen in a bar promotes the first "Trump vs. Biden" presidential debate.
Without debates, and low on cash, Trump will need to ratchet up the crazy in the final weeks. Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images

Joe Biden announced another record-breaking fundraising tally Wednesday night, as the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised $383 million combined in September, besting the pair’s previous record of $365 million set one month earlier in August. The Trump campaign has not yet announced its fundraising numbers, which have flagged and trailed the Democrats’ donations. Both campaigns have to report fundraising totals by October 20, but if the Trump campaign’s numbers aren’t great, expect the campaign to take every bit of that time and hope the enthusiasm difference gets swept up in the media explosion that is the final days of the race.

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With less than three weeks until Election Day and millions of Americans currently casting ballots either by early vote or mail-in ballot, the money difference is substantial. Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said the vice president’s campaign has a staggering $432 million on hand to deploy over the last weeks of the election, and potentially beyond depending on when and how the race ultimately resolves itself. The Trump campaign has gotten awfully quiet about its finances since the early days of the campaign when it raced out to a substantial lead. Since then, as the president’s poll numbers have sagged so have the campaign donations. In August, for instance, Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $210 million, trailing the Democratic haul by almost $150 million.

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That fundraising difference has been exacerbated by reports that the Trump campaign was burning through money over the summer—reportedly close to $1 billion dollars—without much to show for it. As a result, the Trump campaign has been forced to withdraw ad buys from multiple swing states where in many cases the president is now being overwhelmed by Biden air time. Trump is now trying to hold onto states like Iowa, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Ohio, all of which have now been deemed electoral tossups. In Iowa, where recent polls have given Biden a slight edge, Trump is no longer on the air at all, while Biden fired up an ad campaign over the last several weeks to try to swipe the state that Trump won by nearly 10 points in 2016. In the September, the Trump campaign declared that pulling ads altogether from neck-and-neck states like Iowa—and Ohio (!)—was a “sign of strength.”

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