Biden convenes top donors as 2024 fundraising ‘marathon’ starts

By Arlette Saenz, Kevin Liptak and Fredreka Schouten, CNN

President Joe Biden will convene more than 150 of his biggest donors at a lux Washington, DC, hotel over the next two days, a sign, even in the campaign’s earliest stages, of the importance he will place on raising a war chest to take on Republicans in his reelection fight.

Biden’s team hopes dampened enthusiasm among Democrats for his reelection bid won’t translate to struggles raising campaign cash with high-dollar and grassroots supporters. In the campaign’s opening days, top Biden donors told CNN they’d received a positive response to his announcement and predicted little trouble raising money from top contributors.

Yet just as Biden faces headwinds in the election itself, his ability to raise north of a billion dollars will be tested by an uncertain economy and Democrats who appear tepid over his decision to run again.

In remarks at a reception with some of his most loyal fundraisers Friday evening, the president provided donors a window into his strategy and messaging while highlighting his administration’s accomplishments and criticizing “MAGA” Republicans.

“It’s very simple,” Biden said, according to pool reports. “We need you. Our democracy needs you. Because this is about our freedoms. MAGA Republicans are trying to take us backwards, but together, we’re not going to let them do it.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff were on hand for the event, as well as big fundraising Democratic governors: Wes Moore of Maryland, Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Gavin Newsom of California.

On Saturday, donors will receive strategy briefings from longtime Biden advisers and Democratic National Committee officials. A campaign official told CNN that discussions will focus not just on raising cash for the reelection campaign but also mapping out a “winning strategy that will fund winning campaigns from the top of the ticket on down.”

Several Biden campaign co-chairs, including, Sens. Chris Coons and Tammy Duckworth and Reps. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Veronica Escobar, will also partake in the weekend gathering.

Biden’s team views these conversations as a chance to reengage with the deep pocketed donors who helped fuel his 2020 run when the pandemic forced general election fundraising to move from in-person gatherings to zoom calls.

“This is a marathon, and we have the luxury of time of actually being able to reengage with his supporters, with his donors, for him to appreciate them,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood producer and prolific Democratic fundraiser now serving as co-chair for Biden’s campaign, told CNN in an interview.

Biden’s victory in 2020 was fueled, in part, by his ability to pull in more than $400 million from small-dollar donations — a feat his team hopes to replicate this time around, even as a majority of Democrats say in recent polls they don’t want him to run again.

“No,” Katzenberg said when asked if there’s concern grassroots donors won’t mobilize again for Biden. “The sentiments that are being measured in those polls are actually not the sentiment that gets measured when you go into an election competition.”

To that end, Biden has already focused extensively on his grassroots network in the opening days of his reelection bid, telling a group of supporters in a virtual appearance Thursday, “We wouldn’t be here without you.”

At Friday’s reception, Biden thanked attendees, telling them to laughter: “You raised more money for me last time than I raised in my whole life. You think I’m kidding; I’m not.”

Biden’s campaign did not release its first 24-hour fundraising totals, a deviation from his approach in 2019, when the crowded field of Democratic candidates announced first day hauls as a sign of momentum in the early stages of the race. This time, they could wait to disclose fundraising totals until the end of the quarter.

Biden’s team has not publicly set an exact dollar target for its fundraising goals, but Katzenberg predicted Biden would well surpass his fundraising haul from 2020, when his campaign raked in more than $1 billion.

Democratic aides have been laying preliminary plans for the president to headline several high-dollar fundraisers in key cities, including in New York, over the summer. Precise details were still being finalized, but one person familiar with the plans said events were also likely in California and Chicago.

Top Biden officials have already been in touch with the party’s major donors, and the DNC has been regularly updating bundlers for months on their expectations for the coming campaign.

Announcing his reelection run in April — rather than waiting for the summer months when fundraising efforts can be slower — allows Biden’s team to get a jumpstart on bringing in money.

With no formidable Democratic challengers this time around, Biden can forgo the messy and costly primary process and operate with the full backing of the DNC and its fundraising apparatus from the outset.

“He doesn’t have primaries. He has the luxury of time, and most certainly the other side does not,” Katzenberg said.

With the Republican primaries under a year away, the Republican field has seen a handful of candidates formally enter the race, including Trump, former South Carolina Gov. and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison. Several other potential candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence, could also launch campaigns in the coming months.

Sources say the contours of the Biden campaign’s finance team are still being finalized. The president has yet to name a national finance chairman or national finance director, the top fundraising posts on his campaign.

“We’re all building the plane as it’s coming together,” one Biden bundler said.

Katzenberg, the only non-elected official serving in the campaign co-chair role, said he hopes to help lighten the fundraising load for Biden as he juggles his job as commander-in-chief with the demands of a campaign.

“My highest priority is to take as much as can be taken off his plate,” Katzenberg said. “Maximize his time.”

While he’s expected to refrain from large-scale campaigning right away, the president and his team are diving quickly into fundraising efforts. In the days since the launch, the campaign has bombarded supporters with requests for campaign donations via text and e-mail, including one signed by Biden’s former boss — Barack Obama.

“Twenty-five bucks a month is a big deal for a lot of people,” Biden said in a video as he geared up to call grassroots supporters on his campaign launch day.

The president, who spent much of the 2020 general election raising money via Zoom, and his team are expected to hit the fundraising trail in the coming months. Harris is already scheduled to raise money in Georgia for the state’s Democratic Party at a spring fundraiser on May 12. The first lady is also expected to be a draw for Democratic donors.

One of Biden’s tasks as he engages with donors will be soothing some sore feelings that he hasn’t tended to his top contributors since taking office. Some have complained privately about not receiving invites to White House events or hearing from members of Biden’s team.

At the White House this week, Biden did invite a handful of top Democratic donors to a state dinner honoring South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol — traditionally one of the most sought after perks for a political contributor.

Some of Biden’s political fundraisers interviewed by CNN this week say they’ve had a positive response from donors to Biden’s reelection announcement. Trump’s emergence as a leading contender for the Republican nomination will only spur giving, said Alan Kessler, a Philadelphia lawyer and longtime Democratic campaign bundler.

“I haven’t heard anybody say, ‘I’m not interested,'” Kessler said of his interactions with donors since the Biden announcement. “It’s just like it was four years ago…The more Donald Trump opens his mouth about something, it just reminds people that we can’t go back to 5 years, 6 years of that.”

Trump and other potential rivals have had a fundraising head start on the president.

Trump never dismantled his fundraising operation after leaving the Oval Office in 2021. And just days before announcing his presidential bid in November, Trump’s team transferred $40 million from his post-White House leadership PAC to a super PAC supporting his 2024 bid.

Yet some major donors have been working to find an alternative to Trump, wary of his lies about the 2020 election.

As CNN recently reported, DeSantis — who is expected to enter the GOP primary race in the coming months — has a potential pool of $115 million available for the main outside group supporting his candidacy and is laying the groundwork to break fundraising records on the day the Republican announces.

But after wading into culture war issues, including a legal dispute with Disney, some major Republican donors are also looking beyond DeSantis to other options.

“I think when it comes to raising money, an incumbent president doesn’t have problems,” said Robert Wolf, a longtime Democratic fundraiser and a Wall Street veteran. He said he’s slated to attend this week’s events, although he has pulled back on some of his political bundling because of his work contributing to Fox News.

“At the end of the day, both sides are going to be able to raise a lot of money,” Wolf added. “For good or bad, that’s where politics has gone.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Sam Fossum contributed to this report.