Biden’s grassroots fundraising has yet to take off

Having spent months assuaging Democratic fears about the election by pointing to their fundraising lead over Donald Trump, the Biden team reported this week that it had brought in less money in April than Trump’s campaign claimed to have raised alongside the RNC.

That halted, at least for the moment, the Biden team’s months of crowing and promises to bury Trump in a pile of cash — and sparked some concern that one clear advantage the president enjoyed may be neutralized.

Privately, aides have two main explanations. The first is that there was a dearth of big donor events last month, which they are already planning to change in the weeks ahead. Some also point to a larger structural dynamic that could prove harder to fix: The grassroots fundraising machine that boosted them in 2020 isn’t yet humming.

“There is a question as to when the grassroots money really kicks in in a meaningful way,” said one campaign official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We saw that happening in March a bit, but it’s not organic yet in a way that it needs to be.”

The campaign notes that it still has substantially more cash on hand and has spent four years building a strong and durable online network, adding that “a majority of April’s raise came from grassroots donors,” and that “one million more supporters” were added to its email list. But grassroots fundraising for the campaign has, so far, been less of a gusher and more of a faucet being occasionally turned on.

Online donations spiked around events like the Radio City Music Hall gathering headlined by Joe Biden and former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and Biden’s State of the Union address. But otherwise, it has been relatively flat. Biden's campaign and his principal joint fundraising committee, Biden Victory Fund, saw around 100,000 first-time givers on the online portal ActBlue in April, according to an analysis of ActBlue's FEC filings. That was down from nearly 250,000 donors who gave to Biden's campaign or his joint fundraising committee for the first time in March.

Operatives in the digital space say they understand why.

“This is a race that has not started yet,” said Mike Nellis, the founder of Authentic, a Democratic firm that specializes in fundraising, advertising and online organizing.

Democrats, he said, have struggled to raise money online ever since Biden was inaugurated — largely because the MSNBC Moms who’d spent the last four years smashing the ‘donate’ button to Act Blue, were able to take a breath.

“Winning is one of the worst possible things for grassroots fundraising. It removes the urgency to donate,” Nellis continued. Once the Biden-Trump general election matchup crystallizes for people, Biden’s online fundraising should tick up. But for the moment, the broader electorate is fatigued with yet another Biden-Trump presidential contest.

“It's like a movie sequel where they're just doing the same plot,” he said. “It makes sense that a lot of people are going to be tuned out until the final months.”

The Biden team says it fully anticipated April’s numbers. When Biden’s national finance committee met at the campaign’s headquarters a few weeks ago, they discussed how Trump could — and even would — start closing in on their fundraising lead, noting reports that some billionaires and big Wall Street donors were warming up to the former president even after vowing to not support him again, according to a person who attended the meeting.

Biden attended just two major campaign fundraisers last month as the White House prioritized official travel. And neither of those events compared to the Radio City Music Hall gala, which also engaged small-dollar online donors through a number of contests.

The campaign also says it feels confident in its approach to grassroots fundraising. Aides see it as a longer term play, expressing confidence about being able to scale up in the closing months of the campaign. They point to 2020, when Biden’s online fundraising exploded in the final months of the general election, with hauls of nearly $13 million and $14 million following the naming of Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate and the closing night of the DNC, respectively.

Conspicuously, the team has not tried to juice online giving by constantly capitalizing on Trump’s legal woes, in part because they believe that the quality of the small-dollar program matters far more than the quantity of emails and texts going out to its list. When they have touched the trial, it’s been indirectly, such as last week, when the campaign sold “Free on Wednesdays” t-shirts alluding to the one day a week the former president was not obligated to be in court.

In the meantime, the immediate focus is on putting together big donor events around which they can generate more online giving.

Biden traveled to Boston on Tuesday for multiple fundraisers, including one with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma and he is scheduled to attend a star-studded reception in Los Angeles next month with Obama, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts. Biden surrogates have also ramped up their fundraising events in recent days. Anna Wintour and designer Tom Ford hosted a reception with Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Tuesday and Vice President Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) are headlining finance events in the coming days.

“It’s a story for a month,” said John Morgan, a Florida attorney and longtime Biden bundler, in talking about April’s lull. “And I think what will happen is the fundraisers will kick into high gear.”

Jessica Piper contributed reporting.

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