Opinion by: Krystal Ball
Joe Biden is out with his fundraising numbers for Q3. These of course coming at a critical moment for his campaign. He’s under new scrutiny for various family members cashing in on their access to him. And Biden’s been on such a downward slide in the polls that he is now only 2 points ahead of warren in RCP’s national average.
So what better way to shore up support and have a show of strength coming in to the next debate than posting a big fundraising number to prove he’s still the big man on campus. I mean after all, he’s been hitting the fundraising circuit hard even sticking with an oil exec fundraiser he took heat on during the climate change forum. According to NBC news, Biden ramped up his fundraising schedule big time from q2 to q3 going from 24 to 43 big dollar events. That’s a whole lot of money groveling. It’s all worth it though if you’ve got that sweet sweet campaign cash ready to be deployed to bludgeon poor unsuspecting Iowans just trying to watch Sean Spicer humiliate himself on Dancing with the Stars.
So, did Biden keep himself in respectable frontrunner cash haul range? Drumroll please. This quarter, Biden raised a whopping $15.2 million.
Ladies and gentlemen, that…is…pathetic. It’s a massive drop off from the 22 million he raised in q2. For heaven’s sake a socialist scraping together donations from Wal-Mart workers at $18 a pop out raised him by a full $10 million!
Dude, you realize next quarter, Andrew Yang is gonna raise more than you! Have your aides even briefed you on who that is yet?
Here’s what we know so far for the quarter. Bernie’s top of the pack so far at $25. Still waiting on warren’s numbers to come in but I expect her to hit a big number as well. I thought Mayor Pete’s number was rough until I saw Biden’s.
The truth is, Biden’s campaign is starting to stink and it is a huge problem for him. Just in terms of the fundraising numbers, it’s going to be really hard to get it back on track. It’s not like the people who are ponying up Biden campaign cash are all in for the principal of the thing. I’m sure some genuinely like him but I’d be willing to bet his strongest fundraising vein has been the transactional type who just want to back the winner so they can get their ambassadorship or their particular goodie snuck in a bill or just the ego stroking of occasionally having the president phone them. You have no idea how much the photos and white house Christmas party invites motivate these people.
But it’s an even worse sign for the campaign itself. Biden has maintained his position despite debate performances that have ranged from lackluster to downright offensive, minimal campaigning, and no vision other than “Trump bad Obama good” because people thought he was a winner. This is what democrats have told pollsters over and over again. They want the solid guy to solidly win the primary and solidly beat trump. these numbers, coming at this moment, are anything but solid. on the contrary, it looks weak.
No energy, falling in the polls and now no fundraising juice! that’s to say nothing of the fact that democrats brilliantly decided to put his family’s standard issue Washington corruption at the heart of their trump impeachment probe. You literally cannot make this stuff up. needless to say, if Bernie saw this kind of fundraising fall off the calls for him to drop out would be deafening.
I think the truth for Biden is that he missed his moment. There was a lane for him last time around. Before trump radicalized everyone in various ways, before Bernie forced the party to actually stand for something, and before Joe was 4 years older. Hillary was obviously much weaker of a candidate than anyone thought. Joe’s middle class schtick would have played well against Hillary’s Goldman Sachs schtick. but here we are with Biden’s campaign, like his fundraising numbers crashing into the rocks and crushing the dreams of status quo neoliberals everywhere. Maybe you all should take another look at Beto or something.
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