Biden surpasses Trump in June fundraising
Joe Biden reported raising $10 million more than President Trump last month amid new polls showing the former vice president holding a solid lead in the race for the White House.
The increasingly strong footing of Trump’s presumed Democratic challenger comes at a time when most Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality, polls show.
Biden and the Democratic National Committee reported raising $141 million in June, surpassing the $131 million in donations to Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.
For April, May and June combined, Biden also eclipsed Trump, collecting $282 million with the DNC as the president and the RNC took in $266 million.
After praising a video of a supporter shouting ‘white power,’ Trump vows to overturn fair housing rules and calls Black Lives Matter street painting a ‘symbol of hate.’
“It’s clear that voters are looking for steady leadership, experience, empathy, compassion, and character — and they’ll find all of these qualities in Vice President Joe Biden,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon told supporters in an email.
Biden’s campaign did not disclose how much cash it had on hand, so it’s unclear whether it has overcome its previously strong disadvantage on that score. Trump and the RNC reported $295 million in the bank at the end of June.
“No one is excited about Joe Biden, which is why he has to rely so heavily on surrogates like Barack Obama and radical Hollywood elites,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said. “In stark contrast, President Trump is tapping into support from real Americans all across the country who have reaped the benefits of his America First agenda.”
Trump far outspent Biden on television advertising in presidential battleground states from May 11 to June 28, according to a report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Wesleyan Media Project. Trump spots ran about 50,000 times, and Biden ads aired around 3,100 times.
Biden benefited from ads by outside groups, but nowhere near as much as Trump did. Pro-Biden groups ran ads about 23,000 times, while spots by pro-Trump groups ran almost three times as often, according to Wesleyan.
For both sides, the main battlegrounds were Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Despite Trump’s advertising onslaught, polls continue to show his campaign facing deep trouble. Just 41% of voters approve of Trump’s job performance, and 56% disapprove, according to an aggregate of polls by the website FiveThirtyEight. More than 68% of voters believe America is on the wrong track, according to RealClearPolitics.
A Monmouth University national poll released Thursday found that voters favor Biden over Trump, 53% to 41%.
In a sign that Trump’s portrayal of Biden as senile has not succeeded, the survey found 52% of voters believe the former vice president has the mental and physical stamina to carry out the job of president, but just 45% say the same thing about Trump. Biden, 77, is three years older than Trump.
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