On Monday, the Biden campaign announced its fundraising numbers from the fourth quarter of 2023, and Team Biden is really trying hard to give the impression that the campaign is a force to be reckoned with. But, before we go any further, you should know that the narrative being pushed by the campaign and the mainstream media is ridiculously deceptive.
And I’m going to clear it up for you.
What exactly is being said?
“As Republicans face off in Iowa tonight, the Biden-Harris campaign is announcing a massive cash haul in its latest filings,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough reported Monday. "It's actually—it's record-breaking for Democrats. The campaign raised $97 million in quarter four with a total of $117 million cash on hand. It is the highest total amount amassed by any democratic candidate in this point in an election cycle."
Other Biden-friendly outlets were quick to parrot the narrative that the Biden campaign is raising huge amounts of money. Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg even appeared on MSNBC to boast about the huge haul.
"I'm saying quite clearly: at this moment, on the fundraising side, Joe Biden is kicking butt. You couldn't ask for a better outcome; you couldn't ask for more momentum,” he told Scarborough.
TJ Ducklo, a senior advisor to the Biden campaign who previously resigned from the Biden administration after making misogynistic remarks to a reporter, similarly pushed this narrative, sharing every astroturfed story about the fundraising numbers and posting graphics meant to show just how much Biden is dominating in the fundraising race, like this one:
In case it was unclear how we define "kicking butt" https://t.co/JoAIFpNJza pic.twitter.com/DY0GL13q7t
— TJ Ducklo (@TDucklo) January 15, 2024
Naturally, the message being pushed by the campaign, and thus the media, is that there is tremendous enthusiasm for Joe Biden. But here’s the truth about the numbers and why comparing them to GOP fundraising and cash-on-hand totals is misleading: they aren’t the fundraising totals of the Biden campaign.
Check out how Bloomberg reported the news:
President Joe Biden’s campaign raised $97 million in the fourth quarter, a massive sum that is likely to dwarf the fundraising of his Republican competitors, including Donald Trump.
The campaign reported a total of $117 million cash on hand for Biden’s reelection effort, the largest total amassed by any Democratic presidential contender at this point in the cycle in history, according to a statement Monday. The total includes money raised for Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties.
Well, well, well... isn’t that interesting? So, right off the bat, it’s clear these numbers are inflated because the numbers aren’t limited to money raised by the Biden campaign. And NBC News waited until the final paragraphs of its own report to explain the folly of comparing Biden’s fundraising to that of GOP candidates.
"There's no direct comparison to the Republican field to be made right now because the GOP candidates aren't fundraising in concert with the Republican National Committee or state parties yet,” NBC News explained.
At least they mentioned it... even if they buried it at the end.
I suppose I can’t blame the Biden campaign and its allies for pushing a deceptive narrative. The polls don’t look good for Biden at all, and there are calls from within the Democratic Party for Biden to drop out so the party can run someone who isn’t a walking corpse instead. By creating the impression of tremendous momentum on the fundraising end, they can potentially stave off calls for Biden to drop out.
But here’s another nugget you probably won’t hear much in the media: At the same point in the 2020 campaign, Donald Trump and the Republican Party raised $154 million. Adjusted for Bidenflation, that would be the equivalent of $183.5 million now—far surpassing the $97 million Biden’s campaign is boasting about raising today.
