Obama helps Biden campaign raise nearly $4 million from grassroots donors
By Arlette Saenz, CNN
Washington (CNN) — The Biden campaign has leaned on former President Barack Obama to help in its fundraising push, raising nearly $4 million from appeals geared toward grassroots donors, CNN has learned.
The main effort – a contest to meet Obama and President Joe Biden – raked in $2.6 million for the campaign, marking its best performing contest of the cycle, a campaign official told CNN. The two men met the contest winner, Cynthia Driscoll and her son Nicholas, earlier this month.
“It was great teaming up with my friend and brother, @BarackObama, to spend some time with supporters Cynthia and Nick,” Biden said Friday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
The contest, which was held in the third fundraising quarter, highlights one of the ways the campaign has tried to boost its small-dollar donations as it builds up its war chest heading into 2024.
Officials have worked to find ways to tap into the appeal of the former president, who remains a popular figure within the Democratic Party. The Biden campaign has featured him in fundraising videos, emails and digital ads, and Obama is the highest-performing email signer outside of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their spouses, the official said.
Plans are also underway for a direct mail campaign in Obama’s name to start arriving in mailboxes over the holidays, the official said, with the money raised expected to go toward the first fundraising quarter of 2024.
Biden recently teamed up with his former boss for a video vowing to protect and expand Obamacare at a time when former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 GOP nomination, is threatening to repeal the health care law if he wins his comeback bid.
Sources have said Biden’s team is eyeing a target of roughly $67 million for the fourth fundraising quarter, which ends December 31. This would be in line with what Obama raised in his reelection effort in the same three-month period in 2011. Biden’s campaign and the Democratic Party raised $71 million in the third fundraising quarter, outpacing Trump and other Republican presidential candidates.
Earlier this month, Biden set out on a five-day fundraising sprint that was slated to bring in more than $15 million, some of his most lucrative event hauls of the campaign.
Building on the popularity of the contest to meet Biden and Obama, the campaign has also run other contests to meet Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden as well as one for coffee with Biden and Harris.
The “Meet the Presidents” contest kicked off in August on Obama’s birthday and ran through September.
Driscoll of Harrisville, Rhode Island, who works at the Rhode Island School of Design, donated $100 to enter the contest to meet Obama and Biden. She brought along her son Nicholas, who works in sales for a precious metal refinery. Nicholas survived childhood cancer, and he and his mother visited the White House during the Clinton administration after receiving an invitation for being a cancer survivor.
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