Top Democratic super PAC pulls in $36.6 million in second quarter

Priorities USA, the largest Democratic super PAC and the main outside group supporting former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential bid, pulled in $36.6 million in the second quarter of the year, the group announced Friday.

The group raised nearly half of its second-quarter total — $16.5 million — in June alone. And since the beginning of July, Priorities has raked in another $12.4 million. 

So far this cycle, Priorities has raised $185 million. The group is planning to spend over $200 million to boost Biden. That spending could prove crucial as the presumptive Democratic nominee barrels into his fall campaign against President Trump, who boasts a massive war chest and outside support of his own.

“We have just over 100 days left until Election Day and our supporters are fired up to elect Joe Biden the next President of the United States,” Guy Cecil, the chairman of Priorities, said in a statement. 

“Our fundraising success has meant that we’ve been able to go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump in battleground states while the Biden campaign becomes a general election juggernaut,” he added.

Biden has begun to close his financial gap with Trump. His campaign outraised the president’s in June, raking in $141 million to Trump’s $131 million. Biden’s campaign said on Thursday that it ended the second quarter of 2020 with $242 million in cash on hand, while Trump’s operation had $295 million in the bank.

Trump has also found himself playing defense amid the coronavirus pandemic, economic uncertainty and protests over racial injustice and police brutality. His approval rating has sunk in recent months, and most recent polls show him trailing Biden, both nationally and in key battleground states.

The president’s increasingly dim political prospects prompted him this week to demote his longtime campaign manager Brad Parscale and replace him with Bill Stepien, a data-driven political operative with deep ties to the Republican establishment.