GOP Strategist On Joe Biden’s Dismal Fundraising: ‘How’s He Going To Compete With Trump?’
Former vice president Joe Biden turned in what some have claimed to be “devastating” third-quarter fundraising numbers, raking in over $6 million less than he raised in the previous quarter.
According to Fox News, even though Biden remains the front-runner in many of the national polls, three Democratic presidential candidates raised significantly more than the $15.2 million Biden raised in the third quarter, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
As The Inquisitr reported on Thursday, Buttigieg raised $19.1 million and Sanders managed to grab first place at $25 million. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has surged to become Biden’s top rival from a national and early-voting state poll perspective, raised $24.6 million.
Biden’s numbers sank noticeably enough that he even commented on the matter, but explained that he got started later in the process than many of his opponents.
“We haven’t raised what a lot of people have — we got started way later than everybody else, but we’ve raised, this last quarter, $15 million, in the middle of summer,” Biden said during a Palo Alto, California, campaign event on Thursday.
According to Politico, a GOP strategist for former Florida governor Jeb Bush questioned Biden’s ability to stay in the game with such low numbers and questioned how he hopes to compete against President Donald Trump, who combined with the Republican National Committee, hauled in a staggering $125 million in third-quarter fundraising. He also warned that Biden appears to be on the same track Bush was on, coming out of the gate with strong name recognition and eventually falling after big donors pulled out.
“The former vice president, with all the high-dollar contacts around the country — you do all the big fundraisers in the big cities. Once you do that, that’s it. If you don’t have that perpetual, low-dollar fundraising machine, you can’t compete,” strategist David Kochel said.
“Biden looks like he can’t compete with Warren, Bernie and Buttigieg. How’s he going to compete with Trump?”
As Fox News reported, a Democratic strategist who requested to remain anonymous reportedly echoed the concern, stating that the former vice president’s numbers “should raise some serious questions about whether Joe Biden has the chops to raise the money necessary to compete in a general election and whether he can excite the Democratic base that is giving is giving an enormous number of small-dollar contributions to other candidates.”
In contrast, Larry Rasky, who worked on Biden’s failed 1988 and 2008 White House runs, said Biden’s numbers aren’t that bad, but admitted they could be higher. Rasky said Biden’s campaign wasn’t so much focused on money over the last three months — rather, his campaign spent energy building grassroots support for the candidate.
Biden’s campaign defended the low numbers as well, pointing to the fact that the last week of the third quarter delivered his best haul since May and reporting that 98 percent of the donations were $200 or less.
