Biden’s reelection battle is political but also financial
AFP :
For the first time since formally entering the 2024 presidential race, Joe Biden headed Wednesday on a fundraising trip for a contest that could once again top all campaign spending records.
After taking the Republicans to task on the debt ceiling standoff in a speech in the northern suburbs of New York City, the US leader was due in Manhattan for two potentially lucrative receptions with wealthy donors.
One will be hosted by Tony James, the former executive vice chairman of the Blackstone Group, a global asset management firm. The price of admission to James’s apartment shindig? A cool $25,000 a person, according to CNBC.
Afterwards, Biden will head to a campaign fundraising dinner at the home of businessman George Logothetis.
Outside the United States, such events at swanky homes mixing politics, money and cocktails can seem… unseemly, especially with the head of state in attendance.
In America, money makes the campaigns go around, and a candidate can even be measured by his or her ability to attract political donations — the theory being that if enough influential people are willing to donate, that person is a winner.
Biden’s campaign advisors have told The Washington Post that they hope to raise more than $2 billion to help carry the 80-year-old Democrat to a second term in the White House.
In the camp of former president Donald Trump, seen as his most serious potential Republican adversary, aides insist his indictment on 34 criminal charges over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels has only fueled campaign donations.
Open Secrets, a nonprofit organization that tracks campaign finance data, estimates that the 2024 presidential election cycle could be the most expensive in US history.
In 2020, when Biden ultimately defeated Trump, the presidential election cost a whopping $5.7 billion — more than double the amount spent in 2016, the group says.
Of course, campaign contributions don’t just come from billionaires and huge companies; in 2020, according to Open Secrets, Biden received more than $400 million from small individual donors — who each gave less than $200.
