Photo by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
The 2024 Election hasn’t unfolded like Democrats predicted it would.
Now, they’re facing some tough conversations over the state of play for the race.
And Democrats are worried sick after Joe Biden lost this big advantage over Donald Trump.
Democrats were clinging to Joe Biden’s fundraising advantage for hope
The political dynamics for the 2024 Election have been remarkably consistent for months.
Former President Donald Trump has held a small but steady lead nationally over President Joe Biden and in the swing states that will determine the election.
Trump is polling the best of any Republican Presidential candidate since former President George W. Bush in the 2004 Election cycle.
Democrats thought that the trajectory of the race would turn on two things:
- The former President’s campaign was fatally wounded by a criminal conviction in one of his show trials and
- Being able to bury him under an avalanche of spending from the Biden campaign.
Trump trailed Biden in fundraising for most of the year after having to deal with a Primary and being tied down in various courtrooms.
The Biden campaign tried to make Trump’s fundraising in March by calling him “Broke Don.”
“Trump is ‘scrambling’ to raise cash as he lags behind President Biden in fundraising. Instead of closing the gap to fund his campaign, he is fundraising to pay his legal bills and relying on donors to finance his bond,” a Biden campaign memo stated in March.
The theory for Democrats at the time was that the Biden campaign could overwhelm Trump in TV ads and other forms of advertising while the former President’s campaign was too broke to respond.
Democrats panicking after Biden lost his fundraising advantage
But Trump’s fundraising was turbocharged after his conviction in Manhattan.
It took less than a month for the Trump campaign to erase Biden’s fundraising advantage after the conviction.
Now, the Biden campaign lost the one ace in the hole they thought they had for the election.
Democrats are downplaying Trump’s fundraising publicly. But behind closed doors, they’re in panic mode.
“There was the strategy of raising all this money on the front end so we could have this huge edge,” an anonymous Biden bundler told Politico. “The whole point of it was to come out with a sizable cash advantage and, you know, we’re now even and it’s June. […] I have no other word for it other than ‘depression’ among Biden supporters.”
Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks – in a shift in message – said the campaign wasn’t worried about who was winning the fundraising race.
“Our campaign, from the moment we’ve started, is more focused on what we’re doing with our resources, rather than trying to play a game of who’s raising what,” Fulks said.
Democrat strategist Hank Sheinkopf told Politico that Trump’s fundraising should be cause for concern.
“What Democrats should worry about is that it’s even within distance — that the money is going on at Trump’s side at such a clip,” Sheinkopf said. “You would think a guy who’s convicted of crimes would be nowhere, but he’s everywhere financially. And that is a real problem for Democrats.”
“The challenger shouldn’t even be close on the money side, especially a guy who’s convicted of felonies,” Sheinkopf continued. “How is this possible, is what the Democrats should be asking. […] That’s what they should be worried about.”
Joe Biden and Democrats watched their money advantage get wiped out in the blink of an eye after Trump’s conviction.
