Biden has half a billion in bank, and a huge financial edge on Trump

Joe Biden’s campaign said on Sunday that it entered September with $466 million in the bank together with the Democratic Party, providing Biden a vast financial advantage of about $141 million over President Donald Trump heading into the intense final stretch of the campaign.

The money edge is a complete reversal from this spring, when Biden emerged as the Democratic nominee and was $187 million behind Trump, who began raising money for his reelection shortly after he was inaugurated in 2017. But the combination of slower spending by Biden’s campaign in the spring, his record-setting fundraising over the summer — especially after he named Sen. Kamala Harris of California as his running mate — and heavy early spending by Trump has erased the president’s once-formidable financial lead.

Trump and his joint operations with the Republican National Committee entered September with $325 million, according to Trump’s communications director, Tim Murtaugh.

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The Trump campaign pulled back on its television spending in August to conserve money, as some campaign insiders fretted about a cash crunch in the closing stretch of the campaign. But other officials argued that the Trump campaign would continue to raise heavily from small donors and that the cutbacks over the summer were shortsighted.

In the last four weeks of August, the Biden campaign spent $65.5 million on television advertising, compared with $18.7 million by the Trump campaign, according to data from Advertising Analytics.

Some Republicans have questioned how a Trump campaign that has raised $1.3 billion since the beginning of 2019 with the Republican National Committee has already spent nearly $1 billion of those funds before the start of voting.

An extraordinary influx of cash in August accounts for Biden’s newfound financial lead, after he and the Republicans entered the month nearly neck and neck. The Biden campaign and his joint operations with the Democratic National Committee raised a record $364.5 million last month — more than any previous candidate has raised in a single month — while Trump brought in $210 million, their campaigns said.

Monthly financial filings for both the Trump and Biden camps are due on Sunday to the Federal Election Commission, but those reports will offer only a partial window into the state of the money race, as some of their joint committees with the parties will not have to file until next month.