Prominent Democratic donors and strategists fear presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump’s recent fundraising surge has created "a real problem for Democrats," according to a Sunday report by Politico.
In May, Trump outraised Biden by roughly $56 million, wiping the president's long-held cash advantage. In the first 24 hours following Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts for concealing hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, Trump and the RNC raised a combined $52.8 million.
"You would think a guy who’s convicted of crimes would be nowhere, but he’s everywhere financially," longtime Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf told Politico. "That is a real problem for Democrats."
Recent swing-state polling showing Trump with sustained leads over Joe Biden has sent similar shock waves through the president’s campaign. A June 17 poll showed Trump with a near 20-point lead over Biden in Iowa, including a double-digit lead among independent and unaffiliated voters.
"There was a strategy of raising all this money on the front end so we could have this huge edge," one anonymous Biden donor told Politico. "I have no other word for it other than ‘depression’ among Biden supporters."
Biden and Trump are set to debate on CNN this Thursday in Atlanta, the first time the two will go head-to-head in a televised debate since October 2020. On July 11, just four days prior to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Trump will be sentenced following his Manhattan hush money conviction.