How Biden became online fundraising superstar
Long before Joe Biden was smashing online fundraising records, long before it was clear he would become the Democratic nominee, his campaign was facing a serious cash crisis.
It was late summer 2019, and Biden’s online fundraising had slowed to such a trickle that his team basically had to shut down its digital advertising program. His aides knew the choice was self- defeating: No more online ads meant no more finding new donors. The campaign bottomed out in early September 2019 when Biden raised just $ 24,124.17 online in a day.
Now? On one recent day, Biden was raising more than that every two minutes.
The unlikely transformation of Biden, a 77- year- old whose seemingly limited appeal to small donors left him financially outflanked in the primaries, into perhaps the greatest magnet for online money in American political history is a testament to the ferocity of Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump.
In a little over a year, the former vice president’s online fundraising had increased 1,000- fold, to $ 24.1 million on Sept. 30.
Biden now has a once- unimaginable cash edge over Trump, and since Sept. 1 he has reserved $ 140 million more in TV advertising than the president. Money alone does not determine presidential winners — Hillary Clinton vastly outspent Trump in 2016 — but the cash has provided Biden enviable flexibility to engineer the electoral map to his advantage.
“There was always going to be a large amount of money coming in to the nominee,” said Michael Whitney, a Democratic digital fundraising specialist who worked for Sen. Bernie Sanders in the primary. “I’m sure they never dreamed it would be this big.”
To chart Biden’s consequential financial turnabout, The New York Times analyzed the flow of nearly 11 million online contributions from the first nearly 500 days of his campaign. The analysis looked at $ 436 million given through August to Biden and his shared committee with the Democratic National Committee via ActBlue, the donation- processing platform. Checks, merchandise sales and other offline giving were not included.
The Times analysis shows four inflection points in Biden’s fundraising metamorphosis, beginning with one unwittingly provided last fall by Trump, whose presidency has been rocket fuel for Democratic fundraising.
TrumP’s UkraIne call sParked ImPeachment
The first event that reversed Biden’s financial trajectory came not long after he had scrapped his ad budget: the September 2019
news that Trump had pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Biden’s son. That act eventually spurred the president’s impeachment. For many Democratic primary voters, it also was a blunt reminder of Biden’s polling strength against Trump.
In the 40 days before the call burst into view, on Sept. 20, 2019, Biden had raised about $ 62,500 online per day, on average; in the 40 days that followed, he averaged over $ 159,000.
It was something of a financial lifeboat. Over the previous three months, Biden had been spending more than he raised, depleting his cash reserves. The extra $ 100,000 a day helped keep the campaign afloat, officials said.
Kate Bedingfield, a deputy campaign manager for Biden, said Trump’s seeking help from Ukraine “made it clear to the whole world which candidate he feared facing most.”
S. C. resurrected BIden
Then came South Carolina. With Sanders threatening to seize control of the primary, Black voters gave Biden a decisive victory — and online money rained down: more than $ 5 million on Feb. 29 and $ 5 million the next day.
Days later, Biden swept through Super Tuesday to amass a delegate lead he would never relinquish.
Biden would raise $ 25.3 million online over seven days — more than he had in the previous four months.
Just as significant, Biden’s fundraising floor was suddenly and permanently higher — even as the coronavirus pandemic soon froze American life.
He averaged about $ 615,000 per day until Sanders dropped out in early April; the rest of that month, Biden’s daily average jumped to $ 1.1 million.
aloyd’s kIllI g
In the first weeks of May, the Biden campaign was regularly at risk of missing internal digital fundraising goals, according to an official familiar with the matter, and often needed external boosts to help hit its metrics.
Then came the video of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis that set off nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice.
Millions of dollars spontaneously flooded into racial justice groups and Black- led organizations — and Biden’s coffers. On May 27, Biden raised $ 1.3 million, starting his first- ever two- week stretch of days above $ 1 million.
HarrIs’ ImPact
Biden’s choice for his running mate was a closely guarded secret by the campaign’s inner sanctum leading up to Harris’ August unveiling.
The rush of money that followed the announcement was staggering.
The selection of Harris proved so popular, so quickly, that the campaign opened a new fulfillment center just for yard signs. More than $ 48 million flooded into the campaign in those heady first 48 hours, about 80% from online; by the end of the month, all 14 of Biden’s biggest days for online fundraising had come after forming the Biden- Harris ticket.
In one notable move, the Biden campaign sent news of Harris’ selection to the full dormant list of the DNC, something campaigns are generally averse to doing out of fear of tripping spam filters, and again after her convention speech. Those two emails, campaign officials said, reactivated 875,000 supporters.
The Biden campaign raised an average of $ 8.1 million a day online in the last three weeks of August, after Harris’ selection and during the two national conventions.
That is $ 2.5 million more than its previous biggest day.