Biden camp touts fundraising uptick after debate bomb

Joe Biden raised $127 million last month, his campaign said, as the 81-year-old president works to dispel fears about his candidacy.

The haul, a nearly 50 percent increase compared to the previous month, helps the incumbent president end the second quarter on a financial high note after he was outraised by former President Donald Trump in April and May, when the presumptive GOP nominee got a significant financial boost during his criminal trial and conviction.

Trump’s campaign has not yet released June fundraising numbers.

The Biden campaign’s announcement comes only about 24 hours after the end of June and the fundraising quarter — and at a critical time for his embattled campaign. Over the weekend, Biden’s campaign frequently cited its strong grassroots fundraising from Thursday — the same day the president's poor debate performance triggered a wave of panic within the Democratic Party and prompted questions about whether he should step aside.

His aides point to those grassroots totals — two-thirds of Biden’s June total came from small-dollar donors, and nearly half of the donors who gave after the debate were first-time donors — as evidence of continued support from Democratic voters.

The campaign is also rallying high-dollar donors, gathering more than 500 of them for a Monday night call with campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon. She repeated her pitch that the debate, while disappointing, wasn’t affecting the president’s base of support. Molly Murphy, one of the campaign's pollsters, walked donors through their post-debate surveys that she argued showed the race had not shifted. Murphy told the group that Trump continued to be deeply unpopular, and nothing about the president's Thursday night performance had altered that.

The June fundraising total includes money raised directly by his campaign as well as the Democratic National Committee and two joint fundraising committees. The four groups collectively have $240 million cash on hand, up from $212 million at the end of May, the campaign said. The flood of cash helps continue to build up Biden and the DNC’s coffers after Biden lost his financial advantage last month, when Trump closed May with $116.6 million in the bank for his campaign compared with $91.6 million for Biden’s campaign alone.

Biden has raised more than Trump for his campaign over the whole cycle but has also spent more as he has built out campaign infrastructure. The campaign said it has more than 200 field offices and 1,000 staffers across battleground states.

Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez said in a statement that June’s fundraising “is a testament to the committed and growing base of supporters standing firmly behind the president and vice president and clear evidence that our voters understand the choice in this election between President Biden fighting for the American people and Donald Trump fighting for himself as a convicted felon.”

Lauren Egan contributed to this report.