President Joe Biden’s campaign on Tuesday said it raised $127 million in June—its strongest fundraising month of the election cycle—throwing the Democrat a much-needed lifeline amid an intensely negative reaction to his calamitous debate performance against Donald Trump last week.
The campaign said it had raised $38 million in the four days after the debate, since which the 81-year-old has faced calls to drop out and allow a successor to replace him on the ticket. Supporters have highlighted Biden’s ability to raise money as a reason for him to remain in the fight.
The hour after the debate saw a record level of grassroots fundraising, the campaign said, adding that the day of the debate itself had been the campaign’s strongest day for small-dollar donations. The overall monthly haul was almost a 50 percent increase on May—when Trump raised more than Biden for the second month running amid his hush money trial and verdict.
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“Our Q2 fundraising haul is a testament to the committed and growing base of supporters standing firmly behind the president and vice president and clear evidence that our voters understand the choice in this election between President Biden fighting for the American people and Donald Trump fighting for himself as a convicted felon,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said in a statement.
The campaign said Biden heads into July with $240 million cash on hand, an increase from $212 million at the end of May. Trump has not yet released his own June fundraising haul.
While Biden’s campaign touted its grassroots achievements, the president was also helped by a swanky Hollywood fundraiser last month attended by the likes of Julia Roberts, George Clooney, and former President Barack Obama which raked in almost $30 million.
The figures were released early as Biden’s re-election team tries to contain the fallout from his stumbling performance at the debate. On Monday evening, hundreds of Democratic donors and fundraisers were invited to join a Zoom call where campaign officials tried to reassure those worried about Biden’s ability to remain in the race, according to reports.
Biden campaign senior adviser Jen O’Malley Dillon was among those who told donors on the call that early polls indicated that there hadn’t been much damage from the debate, according to Reuters. An unnamed donor on the call told the news agency around five “pointed” questions were covered, including: “Can the president make it through a campaign and another term?”
“It was a damage control call,” one participant told Axios. Another donor told the outlet: “I don’t know what the pathway forward is, and I think they are trying to figure that out, too. We all saw what we saw.”
Another, earlier call with around 40 donors had a particularly awkward moment Sunday when Chávez Rodriguez was asked if donors would be given a refund if Biden doesn’t end up running, a source told Reuters. Chávez Rodriguez reportedly answered that it’s not a concern because Biden is running, later saying the money would move to Vice President Kamala Harris if Biden did drop out for whatever reason.
“Some of us on that call have privately discussed if we should put our money somewhere else,” a donor on the Sunday call told Reuters. “The past few days have been very disappointing.”
