Biden's election war chest trails Trump's in size, filings show

[July 17, 2023]  By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's re-election campaign ended last month with about $20 million in the bank, just trailing the $22 million plus reported by Republican front-runner Donald Trump, according to financial disclosures released on Saturday.

The disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission point to a competitive money race ahead of the November 2024 presidential election.

Biden, a Democrat, has amassed a smaller war chest than past presidents at this point in recent re-election campaigns. Democrat Barack Obama had $37 million at this point in 2011, while Trump had over $56 million in June 2019.

The funds detailed in the disclosures represent a significant chunk of the funding behind the campaigns, but do not include money gathered by allied super PACs, which typically raise massive sums from the wealthiest donors and are due to disclose details on their finances later in July.

Biden's campaign announced on Friday that his re-election effort, when including the Democratic Party's accounts, had $77 million in the bank.

The president is not expected to face a serious challenge in the Democratic nomination contest. One challenger, anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., reported raising $6 million through June, while another, self-help guru Marianne Williamson, took in less than $1 million.

US President Joe Biden listens during a meeting with Nordic leaders (not pictured) at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, July 13, 2023. Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard/via REUTER

Trump's campaign, which was launched in November, reported spending about $9 million in the three months through June, more than any other campaign, according to the disclosures filed to election regulators. The spending included more than $2 million paid to Campaign Inbox LLC, a digital fundraising firm.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who ranks second to Trump in most opinion polls for the Republican nomination contest, had about $12 million in his campaign account, considerably less than the $21 million had by fellow Republican Tim Scott, a U.S. senator for South Carolina. DeSantis and Scott launched their campaigns in May.

Long-shot Republican candidates Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy disclosed putting millions of dollars of their own money into their campaigns. Burgum, the governor of North Dakota, lent about $10 million to his campaign and Ramaswamy, a former biotechnology executive, lent his about $15 million.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Michael Perry)

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