President Joe Biden started the 2024 election cycle with a strong fundraising haul in January, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Incumbents typically have a fundraising advantage, with the ability to jointly fundraise with the national committee and without the need to spend on costly primaries. This cycle, however, with former President Donald Trump also in the mix and coming off a record-breaking 2020 fundraising haul, there were questions on how big of an advantage would remain.
The Biden campaign ended the month with a nearly $56 million cash reserve in its main campaign committee.
Meanwhile, Trump's main campaign committee has a little more than $30 million in its coffers.
The Biden campaign indicated the haul was “driven by a powerhouse grassroots fundraising program,” pointing to 422,000 unique donors in January, with 97% of all donations since the campaign launched coming in under $200.
“President Biden’s campaign is using its resources to build a winning operation that will meet voters where they are about the stakes of this election,” Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden-Harris 2024 campaign manager, said in a statement
Individual contributions in January registered at $8.4 million for President Biden, compared to Trump's $225,800. All of the candidates also transferred significant amounts of money from other authorized committees, which often hold a bulk of fundraising dollars.
President Biden moved $7 million to his campaign, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley transferred $1.7 million, and Trump moved $8.6 million. Joint fundraising committees aren’t required to file new campaign finance reports until April.
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President Biden also spent less in January ($5.7 million) compared to Trump ($11.4 million), who is locked in a primary contest with Haley.
Haley spent $13.1 million, which is more than the $9.8 million she raised in January, but ended the month with $13 million still in her bank with no debt.
The same cannot be said for Trump, who faces hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties from the two recent civil fraud judgments in New York. Much of his spending by his PACs went to those legal fees, to the tune of $3 million in January alone.
When combining fundraising by the Democratic National Committee and President Biden, he is outpacing Trump with $130 million in the bank.
The campaign said that was the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate at this point in the cycle. But it's still below what former Trump brought in in 2020, which turned out to be the most expensive presidential election cycle ever, topping $14 billion, more than double the 2016 cycle.
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