Biden campaign and Democrats raise $42m in January ‘driven by grassroots’

Strong numbers for president’s re-election effort comes amid weak polling as Biden campaign focuses on democracy and personal freedoms to trash Trump

The Biden campaign and the Democratic Party raised more $42m in January in a fundraising haul “driven by” grassroots efforts, officials said.

The Democrats now have $130m in cash on hand as the general election season is set to be one of the longest in recent memory.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager, said in a statement that “January’s fundraising haul – driven by a powerhouse grassroots fundraising program that continues to grow month by month – is an indisputable show of strength to start the election year”.

The campaign claimed to have raised almost $278m since April last year, saying that its $130m cash on hand was the “highest total of any democratic candidate in history”. The president’s re-election campaign also noted that January was its strongest month for grassroots fundraising.

“While Team Biden-Harris continues to build on its fundraising machine, Republicans are divided – either spending money fighting Donald Trump, or spending money in support of Donald Trump’s extreme and losing agenda,” Ms Rodriguez said. “Either way, judging from their weak fundraising, they’re already paying the political price. In an election that will determine the fate of our democracy and our freedoms, 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.”

The reported fundraising totals include money donated to the Biden campaign, the Democratic National Committee and their joint committees.

President Joe Biden is heading to California on Tuesday to attend fundraisers in San Francisco and Los Angeles before heading back to Washington on Thursday.

The campaign fundraising numbers come amid an overhaul of the president’s re-election effort with top White House aides Mike Donilon and 2020 campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon leaving Washington and heading to his Wilmington, Delaware campaign headquarters as many Democrats worry about Mr Biden trailing former president Donald Trump in some polls.

In polls conducted this month by Emerson College, YouGov/The Economist, Ipsos/Reuters, and Morning Consult, Mr Biden is either even with Mr Trump or a few points behind.

The campaign said that January was its third month in a row breaking its record for grassroots fundraising, adding a million new emails to its email list. They noted that “high-profile moments” motivate its donors, adding that they raising $1m a day for three days after the Iowa Republican caucuses.

Last month, 422,000 donors made a total of 502,000 contributions, the campaign added, noting that 97 per cent of the donations have been for less than $200. Since the start of the campaign, 1.1 million donors have made almost three million contributions.

The campaign said it now has more than double the number of donors who contribute every month compared to this time in 2020 – 158,000 have now signed up to contribute regularly.

DNC chair Jaime Harrison noted that donors are motivated to donate “to safeguard our democracy and defend our freedoms”.

The campaign said in a press release that “President Biden’s 2020 campaign raised over $1 billion, the most money of any presidential campaign in history, which included $700 million online driven by small-dollar donations”.