Biden Donors Express Concerns Over Former VP’s Abysmal Fundraising

Donald Trump and the Republican Party are on a roll, financially, and Joe Biden’s biggest fans are growing concerned about that.

The RNC and Trump have been raking in massive fundraising hauls over the course of the last few weeks, no doubt in response to the Democrats’ latest push to impeach the President.  This affront to the 2016 election has been seen by many on the right as “RussiaGate 2.0”, and has only galvanized their support for the incumbent President.

The stunning ability of the GOP to raise money has backer of former Vice President Joe Biden shaking in their boots.

Some of his top backers worry Biden will lack the resources he needs for a sustained conflict. Biden has struggled with online fundraising and, unlike past Democrats, refuses donations from lobbyists and is not supported by a well-funded political action committee, known as a Super PAC.

When it comes to combating Trump, Biden is bringing “a knife to a gunfight,” said John Morgan, a Florida trial lawyer and a leading fundraiser for Biden.

Biden “doesn’t need a gun. He needs a bazooka,” Morgan added.

And nothing seems to be working, either.

Trump’s re-election campaign has committed millions for television ads that push the same allegations against Biden, with a focus on early voting states in the party nomination battle including Iowa and New Hampshire. It has been joined in that effort by Great America PAC, a pro-Trump committee.

Biden, for his part, has tried to counter with his own early-state ad blitz that calls the president “unhinged.”

But with fundraising of $15 million in the year’s third quarter, he is facing a juggernaut in the Trump campaign, which had raised $125 million along with the Republican National Committee in the same period. Biden’s fundraising also trails his leading Democratic rivals, U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, each of whom raised around $25 million last quarter.

“This is a going to be an all-pitched war fought with huge dollars,” said Joseph Falk, a top Biden fundraiser in Miami.

Without a Super PAC, the Biden campaign may not be able to compete with Trump in the long run, but eschewing a small donor strategy too early would almost certainly allow Senator Liz Warren to pounce, overtaking Biden in national level polling.