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      Biden’s Campaign Fund-Raising Filing Shows Sluggish Small Donations

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      Wealthy Democrats have thrown their money behind the president’s re-election bid, but for many reasons, the party’s small donors have yet to step up their contributions.When President Biden traveled to San Francisco last month, he raised more than $10 million in 36 hours from wealthy Democrats. Trips to Chicago and New York netted millions more, as did fund-raising events around Washington, proving that the party’s big-donor class is fully committed to Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign.But the small-dollar online money spigot that helped Mr. Biden smash fund-raising records during his 2020 presidential campaign has not yet turned on, and there are ample signs that it may be months before it does.The Biden campaign and the Biden Victory Fund, its joint fund-raising vehicle, collected $10.2 million from small donors — defined as those who gave $200 or less — during the three-month fund-raising period that ended June 30, according to a Federal Election Commission report filed Saturday. That figure is about half of the $21 million President Barack Obama’s campaign raised during the same period of his 2012 re-election effort.Democrats involved with Mr. Biden’s campaign and the world of online fund-raising detailed a host of reasons for Mr. Biden’s relatively low small-dollar haul.Google and Apple have made it harder for email senders to see data about who has opened solicitations. Inflation slowed political donations across the board. Donors are exhausted by the unending flow of emails asking for money, and recipients are responding to far fewer of them.At the moment, Democrats aren’t quite as fired up as they were in 2018 and 2020, when Donald J. Trump’s presidency opened floodgates of liberal money, or ahead of the 2022 midterms, when the Capitol riot, the rise of the election-denial movement and the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade all motivated donors.And Mr. Biden is not an insurgent candidate who is motivating students to put up posters of him on dorm-room walls, as Mr. Obama or Senator Bernie Sanders did in their campaigns. His low-key White House and bare-bones campaign haven’t yet motivated supporters to rage-donate to his campaign.“Right now there’s there is no day-to-day competition combat going on,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul, whom Mr. Biden named a co-chairman of his campaign. “So these are the most loyal, most dedicated believers and supporters. It’ll build over time.”Mr. Biden’s campaign highlighted an array of statistics to promote its grass-roots donor operation. Nearly a third of its 394,000 donors did not contribute to Mr. Biden in 2020, the campaign said.Yet the president’s finance reports show that he is far more dependent on the wealthiest donors than Mr. Trump was in his re-election bid or Mr. Biden’s opponents were in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary contest.Ten donors, including Mr. Katzenberg, Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and Stewart W. Bainum Jr., the Maryland hotel magnate, gave $500,000 or more to the Biden Victory Fund. Another 82 donors contributed $100,000 or more.Four years ago, 35 percent of the money raised by Mr. Trump and the two joint committees his campaign formed with the national committee — Trump Victory and Trump Make America Great Again Committee — came from donors who gave $200 or less. For Mr. Biden, 21 percent of funds to his campaign and the joint finance committee came from small donors.Small-dollar contributions are down across the political spectrum. An analysis conducted by Middle Seat, a digital fund-raising firm with an array of Democratic clients, found that small donors had given less money during the first fund-raising period of 2023 than they had in nearly four years — since early 2019.“If I were on the Biden team right now, I’d be really happy with the numbers,” said Kenneth Pennington, a partner at Middle Seat. “It’s a terrible fund-raising environment, and he’s not launching a new campaign.”While Mr. Biden’s total fund-raising was roughly on par with the Republican candidates, he outpaced them with small donors. Combined, the G.O.P. candidates raised $7.5 million from small donors to his $10.2 million.The percentage of contributions of less than $200 is typically at its high point at the beginning of a campaign and drops as campaigns proceed, because when the amount an individual donor has given exceeds $200, it triggers a federal disclosure requirement.When Mr. Biden began his 2020 campaign for president, 38 percent of the money his campaign raised during the comparable reporting period came from small donors. Democratic online fund-raising experts said they expected the pace of online giving to the Biden campaign to pick up early next year, once voters begin to pay more attention to the Republican primary race and the nominee to oppose Mr. Biden emerges.“Once Democratic donors become focused on the Republican primary and what’s at stake in the 2024 election, the Biden campaign will have no problem raising record amounts of money online,” said Lauren Miller, who served as digital director to Elizabeth Warren’s Senate campaigns.Mr. Trump’s small-dollar percentage cannot be discerned until his joint fund-raising committees, into which most of his online solicitations direct money, report finances. They are not required to do so until July 31.Finance reports for the other Republican candidates reveal a party that, even more than Mr. Biden, is heavily reliant on large donors.Among the other Republican candidates, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida reported $2.9 million from small donors, but that figure accounts for a mere 14 percent of what his campaign raised. The small-dollar percentages among other candidates ranged from 34 percent for former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey to 2 percent for Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who is largely self-financing his campaign.Unlike the Obama and Trump campaigns, the Biden campaign didn’t begin with a digital fund-raising team in place. Instead, it has relied on the Democratic National Committee for its online solicitations. The campaign advertised last week that it was seeking a “director of email and SMS” to lead a division that typically would have more than a dozen people. The campaign recently hired a grass-roots fund-raising director, an official said Saturday.Mr. Biden’s campaign has plowed at least $3.3 million into advertising on Facebook and Google, according to data compiled by Bully Pulpit Interactive, a marketing and communications agency. That figure is far more than any Republican candidate has spent on the platforms and suggests that the campaign is investing in its search for small donors.Two of Mr. Biden’s top advisers, Anita Dunn and Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, who are overseeing his re-election campaign from the White House, this week formally blessed a super PAC, Future Forward, as the chief outlet for large sums of cash from supportive billionaires and multimillionaires. More

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      Which Presidential Candidates Are Leading the 2024 Money Race?

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      Federal disclosures on Saturday provided a first glimpse of the money race between the presidential candidates for 2024, showing who has amassed the most campaign cash so far. Cash on Hand on June 30 (in millions) Donald J. Trump $22.5 Tim Scott 21.1 Joseph R. Biden Jr. 20.1 Ron DeSantis 12.2 Vivek Ramaswamy 9.0 + […] More

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      DeSantis Sheds Staff Amid Heavy Spending

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      The dismissals come as his campaign for the Republican nomination for president struggles to gain traction against former President Donald J. Trump, who is leading in polls.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has started cutting campaign staff just months into his presidential bid, as he has struggled to gain traction in the Republican primary and lost ground in some public polls to former President Donald J. Trump.The exact number of people let go by the DeSantis team was unclear, but one campaign aide said it was fewer than 10. The development was earlier reported by Politico.The dismissals are an ominous sign for the campaign and also underscore the challenges that Mr. DeSantis faces with both his fund-raising and his spending, at a time when a number of major donors who had expressed interest in him have grown concerned about his performance.An aide, Andrew Romeo, described the campaign’s circumstances in an upbeat tone.“Americans are rallying behind Ron DeSantis and his plan to reverse Joe Biden’s failures and restore sanity to our nation, and his momentum will only continue as voters see more of him in person, especially in Iowa,” he said in a statement. “Defeating Joe Biden and the $72 million behind him will require a nimble and candidate-driven campaign, and we are building a movement to go the distance.”The race is still in its early days, and past campaigns have reshuffled in the months before voting begins. Former Senator John McCain blew up his campaign in the summer of 2007 before winning the Republican nomination. Mr. Trump’s went through three iterations in his successful bid, although none came during the primary races. Several top DeSantis fund-raisers have said the Florida governor is in it for the long haul, with a focus on the upcoming debates and contests that begin in January.But Mr. DeSantis’s moves are coming unusually early. And the fund-raising numbers — filed Saturday — show a campaign that will need to make several adjustments, including to travel schedule and to staff size, if it plans to make up lost momentum that began to fade months before Mr. DeSantis formally entered the race.The DeSantis campaign is also expected to make further changes, according to aides. Policy speeches are planned, along with interviews with the kind of news outlets he has broadly derided, as soon as this week, according to two people familiar with the strategy.Mr. DeSantis’s struggles appear to be not just about the numbers, but also with the campaign’s message. Late last week, two top DeSantis advisers, Dave Abrams and Tucker Obenshain, were announced to be leaving to join an outside group supporting Mr. DeSantis.Mr. DeSantis’s campaign finance disclosure with the Federal Election Commission shows he raised roughly $20 million but spent almost $8 million, a so-called burn rate that leaves him with just $12 million in cash on hand. Only about $9 million of that cash can be spent in the primary, with the rest counting toward the general election if he is the nominee. The filing indicated a surprisingly large staff for a campaign so early in a candidacy, particularly for one with a super PAC that has made a show of how much of the load it is prepared to handle. More than $1 million in expenditures were listed as “payroll” and payroll processing.Mr. DeSantis’s top expenditures included $1.3 million earmarked for travel, including private jet rental services. The campaign also spent more than $800,000 apiece on digital fund-raising consulting, media placement and postage. The campaign also paid nearly $1 million to WinRed, the online donation-processing company.Recent Republican primary races have been littered with examples of candidates with early sizzle followed by significant struggles. Scott Walker, who was the governor of Wisconsin, quit the presidential race in September 2015 as he was amassing debt. Jeb Bush, one of Mr. DeSantis’s predecessors as Florida governor and perhaps the biggest donor draw in the 2016 campaign, began shedding payroll amid struggles as well, though much later in the race.Still, Mr. DeSantis’s allies note that he is further ahead in polls in Iowa than Mr. Bush was in the fall of 2015 and that he has a more natural constituency in Iowa than other challengers. The caucuses will be held on Jan. 15, 2024, and it’s the state where candidates seeking to blunt Mr. Trump must fare well.Rachel Shorey contributed reporting. More

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      Warning Signs for DeSantis and Poor Showing by Pence in 2024 Campaign Filings

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      Warning signs for Ron DeSantis were among the biggest developments of the latest campaign filings, which created a fuller financial picture of the 2024 field.As a fuller financial picture of the 2024 presidential race emerged with Saturday’s campaign filing deadline, trouble appeared to lurk below the surface for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Despite a strong overall fund-raising total of $20 million, Mr. DeSantis is spending hand over fist, and his dependence on large donors suggests a lack of grass-roots support. Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign recorded $17.7 million in fund-raising, nearly all of which was transferred from another committee that will not report its donors until later this month.In the meantime, President Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised almost as much money as all of the Republican candidates for president combined.Some of the more modest Republican earners — such as Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador — appear to have solid support and lean campaign operations built for the long haul. About a third of the $1.6 million haul by former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey came from smaller donors, which is high for Republicans and could speak to relatively broad appeal. Warning signs emerged for Republicans beyond Mr. DeSantis. Former Vice President Mike Pence brought in a paltry $1.2 million in contributions, raising questions about whether he can draw meaningful backing among Republicans.Then there are the self-funded candidates, whose campaigns will last as long as they are willing to spend their own fortunes — and for now at least, they are certainly spending a lot.Here are some initial takeaways from the filings, which detail fund-raising and spending from April 1 to June 30.DeSantis is reliant on big money … and he’s spending it fast.In the six weeks between his entry into the race and the end of the quarter, Mr. DeSantis raised $19.7 million for his campaign, $16.9 million of which came from contributions over $200, a sign of his dependence on big-dollar contributions.He is also spending that money — quickly.His filings Saturday showed that his campaign spent nearly $7.9 million in those six weeks. Top expenditures included $1.3 million earmarked for travel (several vendors appear to be private jet rental services); more than $1 million for payroll; and more than $800,000 apiece for digital fund-raising consulting, media placement and postage.It is a “burn rate” of about 40 percent, which is on the high end compared with the other Republican candidates. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina reported raising nearly $5.9 million in the second quarter, and spent $6.7 million. But he had more of a cushion: He carried $22 million from his Senate campaign into his presidential run.Mr. DeSantis reported $12.2 million in cash on hand at the end of June; Mr. Scott had $21 million.A full picture of Trump’s war chest is not yet clear.Mr. Trump is the runaway leader in polls of Republican candidates, and he has ample financial resources and fund-raising ability. But his exact cash situation is complicated.This month, the Trump campaign said the former president had raised more than $35 million in the second quarter through his joint fund-raising committee, which then transfers the money to his campaign and to a political action committee.His campaign’s filing on Saturday reported a total of $17.7 million in receipts — which includes contributions, transfers and refunds — almost all of which came in transfers from the joint fund-raising committee.Where is the rest of the reported $35 million? The joint fund-raising committee is not required to file its report until the end of the month. The New York Times reported last month that Mr. Trump has in recent months steered more of the money from the joint committee into the PAC, which he has used to pay his legal bills.Pence joins the stragglers.Bringing up the rear of the Republican pack are former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who raised about $500,000 in the second quarter, and Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman, who raised just $270,000.While these long-shot candidates were not expected to raise tons of money, observers might have expected more from former Vice President Mike Pence, who reported just $1.2 million in contributions.Mr. Pence has also spent very little — just $74,000, his filing shows. His campaign has not said whether he has reached the threshold of 40,000 unique donors, one of the requirements to appear on the Republican debate stage on Aug. 23.Self-funding candidates are also burning through cash.On Friday, the campaign of Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy former software engineer, filed its quarterly report, showing that he had raised $1.5 million in contributions and that he had lent $10 million to his campaign.Mr. Burgum’s campaign spent more than $8.1 million last quarter, including an eye-popping $6 million in advertising, the filings show. He had $3.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.Another Republican candidate, the wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, reported $2.3 million in contributions last quarter, as well as $5 million in loans from himself. Mr. Ramaswamy has lent his campaign $15.25 million since he entered the race in February; he has said he will spend $100 million of his own money on his bid.He may need to if he keeps up the spending. He spent more than $8 million from April through June, including $1.5 million on media placement and hundreds of thousands of dollars on travel. More

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      Fundraising Deadline for 2024 Presidential Campaigns Arrives: What to Watch

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      Which presidential and Senate candidates are swimming in cash? Which ones are growing desperate? That and more will become clearer on Saturday, when campaigns must file their latest federal reports.The financial landscape of the 2024 presidential race — the contest’s haves and have-nots, their momentum and desperation — will come into sharper focus on Saturday, the deadline for campaigns to file their latest reports to the Federal Election Commission.The filings, which detail fund-raising and spending from April 1 through June, will show which campaigns brought in the most hard dollars, or money raised under federal limits that is used to pay for staff, travel, events and advertising. Senate campaigns must also file by the end of Saturday, which means an early glimpse at incumbents’ fund-raising in potentially vulnerable seats.Crucially, the records will reveal which candidates are struggling to draw donor interest. For example, former Vice President Mike Pence raised just $1.2 million, two aides said on Friday, a strikingly low figure that could signal a difficult road ahead.The reports will also give a sense of small-dollar support, and which donors are maxing out their contributions to which candidates. And they will show how campaigns are spending their money, which ones have plenty of cash on hand and which ones are in danger of running dry.“The F.E.C. reports are the M.R.I. scan of a campaign,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist. “It’s the next-best thing to breaking into the headquarters and checking the files.”But the picture will not be complete. For one thing, super PACs, which can raise unlimited money and play an outsize role in supporting presidential candidates, do not have to file reports on their fund-raising and spending until the end of the month.The total number of donors to each campaign will not be provided in the filings, either. That figure is a vital measure for Republicans, because the party is requiring presidential candidates to have at least 40,000 unique donors to take part in the first primary debate on Aug. 23.Saturday will also be the first detailed look at President Biden’s war chest as he slowly ramps up his re-election campaign. His campaign said on Friday that along with the Democratic National Committee and a joint fund-raising committee, it had raised more than $72 million combined for the second quarter.In the same period in 2019, former President Donald J. Trump and his allies raised a total of $105 million — $54 million for Mr. Trump and his committees, and $51 million for the Republican National Committee. In 2011, former President Barack Obama raised $47 million for his campaign and $38 million for the Democratic National Committee.Saturday will also show the money taken in by candidates in competitive Senate races in West Virginia, Arizona, Montana, Nevada and Ohio, among other places.The filings for presidential candidates are pored over by competitors, who want to “get a sense of how they are applying their resources, which will give them a clue to strategies,” Mr. Murphy said. Candidates might look at how much their rivals are spending on ads and polling, for example.“The most important number is cash on hand, minus debt,” Mr. Murphy said. “You see how much financial firepower they actually have.”Several Republican presidential campaigns have previewed their fund-raising ahead of the release. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raised $20 million in the second quarter, his campaign said this month. But the filing on Saturday will show what percentage of that amount came from contributions below $200, which is instructive to assessing the strength of his grass-roots support.Mr. Trump raised more than $35 million in the second quarter, his campaign said. That number, however, is hard to compare with Mr. DeSantis’s because Mr. Trump has raised money through a joint fund-raising committee, which allows him to solicit contributions above the $3,300 individual limit and then transfer funds to his campaign and to his leadership political action committee.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raised $20 million in the second quarter, his campaign said this month. His filing on Saturday will show what share came from contributions below $200, a sign of grass-roots support.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesNikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, is raising money into a joint fund-raising committee, which transfers funds to her campaign and to a leadership PAC.Ms. Haley’s three committees together took in $7.3 million in contributions in the second quarter, according to filings shared with The New York Times, of which the campaign itself accounted for $4.3 million.Mr. Murphy singled out Ms. Haley as a candidate whose total earnings appeared modest, but whose cash on hand had increased from the first quarter of the year — to $9.3 million from $7.9 million across the three committees. “It shows a heartbeat,” he said. Her filings also suggest that her campaign is running a lean operation, with minimal staff, economical travel and no television ads.The Republican National Committee’s donor threshold for the first debate has shifted the calculus of many campaigns and PACs, which must focus not only on raising money but also on attracting a sufficient number of individual donors. So far, the candidates who say they have met that threshold are Mr. Trump, Mr. DeSantis, Ms. Haley, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.Nikki Haley’s three committees together took in $7.3 million in contributions in the second quarter, according to filings shared with The New York Times. Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesOn Wednesday, Mr. Scott’s campaign said he had raised $6.1 million in the second quarter. Mr. Scott entered the race in May with a head start: He had $22 million in hard dollars in his Senate campaign. His presidential campaign said it had $21 million remaining at the end of the quarter.Another Republican candidate, the wealthy entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, has not released a preview of his fund-raising numbers, but he has said he will spend $100 million of his own money on his bid. Mr. Christie, similarly, has not released his numbers.On Friday, the campaign of Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, a wealthy former software engineer, filed its quarterly report, showing that he had raised $1.5 million in contributions and that he had lent $10 million to his campaign. He had $3.6 million in cash on hand at the end of the month.The campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer who is challenging Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination, also filed its report Friday, showing more than $6.3 million in contributions and $4.5 million in cash on hand at the end of June.Terry Sullivan, a Republican strategist who ran Senator Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, said it would be telling which candidates broadcast their total donor numbers.Another thing to watch is the “burn rate” of each campaign, Mr. Sullivan said — what candidates are spending as a share of what they have taken in, and how much they have left in the bank.Campaign accounts are vital to candidates because, unlike PACs, the funds are controlled by the campaign. Also unlike PACs, campaigns are protected by federal law that guarantees political candidates the lowest possible rate for broadcast advertising.Mr. Sullivan said that television advertising was no longer as important as so-called earned media exposure, through events, viral moments and debates. But those often cost money, too: Even on a tight budget, candidates can easily spend a quarter-million dollars a day holding events on the trail, he said.“Nobody stops running for president because they think their ideas are no longer good enough, or they’re not qualified,” Mr. Sullivan said. “People stop running for president for one reason, and one reason only: It’s because they run out of money.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      Biden Campaign Elevates a New Super PAC to Help 2024 Re-election Bid

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      The president and his advisers are elevating a new super PAC, Future Forward, as their leading outside group to rake in cash from his wealthiest benefactors.President Biden and his advisers are elevating a new outside group as the leading super PAC to help re-elect him in 2024, making it the top destination for large sums of cash from supportive billionaires and multimillionaires.The blessing of the group, Future Forward, is a changing of the guard in the important world of big-money Democratic politics. Since the 2012 election, a different group, Priorities USA, has been the leading super PAC for Democratic presidential candidates.“In 2020, when they really appeared from nowhere and started placing advertising, the Biden campaign was impressed by the effectiveness of the ads and the overall rigorous testing that had clearly gone into the entire project,” Anita Dunn, a senior White House adviser to Mr. Biden, said of Future Forward. The group, she added, had “really earned its place as the pre-eminent super PAC supporting the Biden-Harris agenda and 2024 efforts.”On Friday, Mr. Biden’s campaign also announced a combined fund-raising total of more than $72 million for the second quarter alongside the Democratic National Committee and their joint fund-raising committee, a figure far greater than what Donald J. Trump raised. Future Forward has raised $50 million so far this year, the group said.Federal candidates cannot legally coordinate campaign strategy with super PACs, but officials in both parties have signaled their preferred entities for a decade. Super PACs can accept donations of unlimited size, unlike federal candidates, who must abide by contribution limits.Future Forward, which is led by Chauncey McLean, a former official on Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, has kept a remarkably low profile for a super PAC that, along with an affiliated nonprofit arm, has raised nearly $400 million in the last five years.The group maintains a sparse website. Mr. McLean said that Future Forward had never sent out a news release trumpeting its activity, which has included producing more than 400 advertisements.“We keep a low profile because we’re just not the story, we’re just not important,” Mr. McLean said in a rare interview. “I just don’t see any reason for popping our head up. That’s not going to change.”The super PAC spent more than $130 million on what are known as independent expenditure ads in the 2020 race between Mr. Biden and Donald J. Trump. It was also a major spender in the midterm elections in three crucial battlegrounds: Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Mr. McLean, who is based in Seattle, said that the group planned to run “the largest presidential I.E. in history” and that his fund-raising goal was to collect “as much as humanly possible.”Ms. Dunn served as a consultant for Future Forward after Mr. Biden was inaugurated, according to her personal financial disclosure form. But she said she saw a key role in 2024 for other super PACs, including American Bridge, the party’s clearinghouse for opposition research, which also runs television ads.Ms. Dunn and other White House officials have attended American Bridge donor conferences this year. The shift away from Priorities USA has been telegraphed to donors for months, since before the group’s longtime leader, Guy Cecil, announced in March that he was stepping away. Priorities this spring announced a goal to spent $74 million on digital advertising in 2024.In a statement, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, a White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, said Future Forward had been “critical” in 2020 and would “again play a key role” in 2024.Unlike super PACs supporting Republican presidential candidates that have built on-the-ground organizations in early presidential nominating states, Future Forward will have a narrow focus on “research and advertising,” Mr. McLean said.Mr. Biden is dispatching Katie Petrelius, the finance director on his 2020 campaign and recently a White House aide, to Future Forward to help the group raise money.There are no immediate plans for Mr. Biden to headline any fund-raising events for the super PAC, but Ms. Dunn said such gatherings could occur in the future.Mr. Biden, like many Democrats in the party’s crowded 2020 presidential primary, initially resisted soliciting the support of a super PAC but backtracked in the fall of 2019, when his campaign was short on cash and needed more presence on the airwaves. (“To speak to the middle class, we need to reject the super PAC system,” Mr. Biden had said that April.)Both super PACs and nonprofit groups can accept unlimited donations, but only super PACs must disclose the names of their contributors. Future Forward’s largest disclosed contributor has been Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook co-founder, who has given more than $50 million to the group since 2020.The group has also received millions of dollars from Stephen F. Mandel Jr., a Connecticut hedge fund manager; Karla Jurvetson, a California philanthropist; Eric Schmidt, the former Google executive; and Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange founder, who gave $5 million in October 2020.Mr. McLean said Future Forward would be “giving back any money associated with” Mr. Bankman-Fried. The group said it had also received $1.65 million from Mr. Bankman-Fried in its nonprofit arm. More

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      Biden and D.N.C. Announce $72 Million in Fund-Raising, a Substantial Haul

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      The figure far surpasses what Donald Trump raised, though it is well short of what Mr. Trump and his allies collected during the same period in the 2020 election cycle.President Biden’s campaign announced on Friday a combined fund-raising haul of more than $72 million from April through June alongside the Democratic National Committee and a joint fund-raising committee, a figure that far surpasses what former President Donald J. Trump and other leading Republican presidential candidates have announced.The campaign said that along with the D.N.C. and the committee, it had a combined $77 million in cash on hand at the end of the reporting period. It did not disclose how that money was divided between the campaign and the committees.“While Republicans are burning through resources in a divisive primary focused on who can take the most extreme MAGA positions, we are significantly outraising every single one of them,” said Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager.While the fund-raising total is well short of the $105 million Mr. Trump and his allies collected during the same period in his 2020 re-election campaign, it is likely to serve as a salve for Democrats who have been privately gloomy about Mr. Biden’s sagging approval ratings. The finance numbers prove that whatever private misgivings Democrats have about Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, the party’s donor class is fully on board.“This is proof positive that this party and its people and the country believe in Joe Biden and the accomplishments of this administration,” said Henry R. Muñoz III, a former Democratic National Committee finance chairman. “This reaffirms Joe Biden’s appeal to the working people and everyday heroes of this country.”At the dawn of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, he and the D.N.C. raised a combined $86 million between April and June 2011.Comparisons to Mr. Obama’s fund-raising efforts for the 2012 campaign are imprecise, however, because a 2014 Supreme Court decision and other legal changes allowed candidates and parties to form joint fund-raising committees that can accept single donations of hundreds of thousands of dollars.And in Mr. Trump’s re-election bid, he had a significant head start over Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump formally announced and began fund-raising for the 2020 race on the day he was inaugurated in 2017, while Mr. Biden, who at the end of March had $1.36 million left over in his campaign account, did not actively solicit money for his campaign until he made his run official in April.Mr. Biden began his 2024 campaign on April 25 — nearly a month after the fund-raising quarter began. His first major fund-raising event was in mid-May in New York, and he did not do any significant fund-raising himself during the heat of negotiations over extending the federal debt ceiling in late May.In June, Mr. Biden traveled to San Francisco and Chicago to meet with major donors before the close of the fund-raising period.Though the Biden campaign did not reveal many relevant details about its finances on Friday, it highlighted more than 394,000 donors and pointed to the success of online advertising programs during notable moments in the Republican primary campaign, like Mr. Trump’s televised town-hall event in May and the campaign announcement of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. Half of the merchandise sold at the Biden campaign’s online store, the campaign said, features the “Dark Brandon” theme.Mr. Biden was never a prolific fund-raiser before he became the party’s de facto presidential nominee in the spring of 2020. Three other Democratic candidates raised more money than he did during the third quarter of 2019, well before his resurgence as the primary season unfolded.But once Democrats unified around Mr. Biden and against Mr. Trump while the pandemic gripped the country, Mr. Biden emerged as a magnet for donors large and small.“Just like 2020 was a record year, I imagine 2024 is going to be a record year,” said Alex Lasry, a former Senate candidate and D.N.C. member from Wisconsin who is the co-treasurer for the Democratic Governors Association.The Republicans vying to replace Mr. Biden will not have the benefit of raising money through their national committee until one emerges as the party’s nominee. Mr. Biden and supportive Democrats also have the advantage of not having to spend much money to get through what for the Republicans is expected to be a rough-and-tumble primary campaign.Mr. Trump said his campaign and his joint fund-raising committee had raised $35 million in the second quarter. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced he had raised about $20 million. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, raised $4.3 million for her campaign and an additional $3 million for her affiliated committees. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said his campaign had raised $6.1 million.Other Republican presidential candidates, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman, have not released their fund-raising totals for the second quarter.Full reports on all federal candidates’ campaign finances, which will include spending and an indication of how much of their money has come from small donors, are due on Saturday to the Federal Election Commission.Rebecca Davis O’Brien More

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      What Really Happened in the Midterms?

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      A segment of swing voters decided to back Democratic candidates in many critical races.Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesMore than eight months later, all the data from the 2022 midterm elections is — finally — final. The two most rigorous reports, from the Pew Research Center and Catalist, are finished.And yet despite all the data, there is a piece of the midterm puzzle that still hasn’t quite been resolved: How exactly did the Democrats manage to nearly sweep every competitive House and Senate race, even though they often fared quite miserably elsewhere?The Catalist report suggested it was the turnout, finding that Democrats won “with electorates in these contests looking more like the 2020 and 2018 electorates than a typical midterm.” Pew also pointed to turnout, but with a different interpretation, writing that Republicans won control of the House “largely on the strength of higher turnout,” and found that disproportionate numbers of Biden voters and Democrats from 2018 stayed home.You might imagine ways to square the two claims, but neither report offers a clear way to reconcile these competing stories. Catalist, a Democratic data firm, doesn’t mention a word on the partisan makeup of the electorate, despite possessing the data to do so. The Pew report, meanwhile, is framed around explaining how Republicans won the House popular vote by three points — an important outcome, but one overshadowed by the Democratic hold in the Senate and the razor-thin Republican House majority.Fortunately, our data at The New York Times can help piece together what remains of the puzzle. Over the last few years via Times/Siena College polls, we’ve interviewed tens of thousands of voters nationwide and in the crucial battleground states and districts. This data can be linked to voter registration files — the backbone of both the Catalist and Pew reports — that show exactly who voted and who did not (though not whom they voted for, of course), including in the states and districts that decided the midterm election.The findings suggest that the turnout was mostly typical of a midterm election and helped Republicans nationwide, but there are good reasons to doubt whether it was as helpful to the party out of power as it had been in previous midterms.It certainly wasn’t enough to overcome what truly distinguished the 2022 midterm election: the critical sliver of voters who were repelled by specific Republican nominees, Donald J. Trump’s “stop the steal” movement and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.At a glance, a typical midterm electorateTo some degree, every midterm leans toward the party out of power, and has an older, whiter electorate. Last November was no exception. Just consider these figures on 2022 voters nationwide:73 percent of registered Republicans (defined by whether someone is registered as a Republican or participated in a recent Republican primary) turned out in 2022, compared with 63 percent of registered Democrats. The 10-point turnout advantage meant Republicans narrowly outnumbered Democrats among 2022 voters given that there are about five percentage points more registered Democrats than registered Republicans by this measure.Just 45 percent of Black and 38 percent of Hispanic voters turned out, compared with 58 percent of non-Hispanic whites, according to data from the Census Bureau. The findings are consistent with data from voter registration files and the actual results, as we reported last fall, along with the Pew and Catalist reports, in showing a weak turnout among Black voters.Voters over 65 represented 33 percent of the electorate, according to the L2 data, compared with just 10 percent for those 18 to 29.All of these patterns are consistent with a typical midterm turnout.The size of the Republican registration advantage is almost exactly in line with the available historical data. It also aligns neatly with our pre-election estimates, which you can see for yourself in our final (and highly accurate) Times/Siena polls.And as we reported in December, this basic story holds up in the battleground states as well. Republicans outvoted Democrats everywhere, including in the very states where Democrats excelled.A hidden Democratic turnout advantage?All of this seems to add up to a stark Republican turnout advantage, powered by an older, whiter and more Republican electorate.But perhaps surprisingly, there are reasons to think the actual turnout advantage for Republican candidates might not have been nearly so large as these figures suggest.Just start with the Pew report, which found that Trump voters were four points likelier to turn out than Biden voters, 71 percent to 67 percent. That’s an important advantage, but it’s less than half the size of the 10-point Republican turnout advantage by registration. The Pew figures actually suggest the 2022 midterm electorate backed Joe Biden in 2020, even though registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats.The Times data suggests something similar. According to our estimates, 69.1 percent of Trump voters turned out compared with 66.7 percent of Biden voters — essentially the same as the Pew figures, though edging even closer to parity.These estimates are based on a statistical model that marries Times/Siena polling data and voter records (including someone’s party registration) to predict how registrants voted in the 2020 election. I’ve forced you through that wonky sentence because it means that these estimates are entirely consistent with and inclusive of all of those various Republican-friendly turnout figures offered earlier: Our estimate is that Republicans outvoted Democrats by 10 points but that Trump voters nonetheless outvoted Biden voters by only two points.Looking at the data more carefully, the source of this disparity is mostly among Democrats. The registered Democrats who stayed home in 2022 were disproportionately likely to be those who sometimes vote Republican. The Democrats who turned out, on the other hand, were especially loyal Democrats who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020. This is partly because of education — midterm voters are more highly educated — but the survey data suggests that this Democratic advantage ran a lot deeper.It’s worth being cautious about this finding. The 10-point G.O.P. turnout advantage cited earlier is essentially a fact. The possibility that the practical turnout advantage for Republican candidates might have been only a third of that or less is an estimate based on fallible survey data. It’s also dependent on accurately surveying a group of people — nonvoters — who are very difficult for pollsters to measure.But the Times and Pew data tell a very similar story, despite very different methodologies, and the accurate topline results of the pre-election surveys add additional harmony. The possibility of some kind of hidden underlying Democratic advantage in motivation is also consistent with other data points on 2022, like Democrats’ astonishing success in ultra-low-turnout special elections.Close to parity in the battlegrounds?The 2022 midterm election was not a simple election decided by a national electorate. It was unusually heterogenous, with Republicans enjoying a “red wave” in states like Florida or New York while other states, like Pennsylvania and Michigan, could be argued to have ridden a “blue wave.”As we’ll see, nowhere near all of the difference between these states can be attributed to turnout. But part of the difference was the disparate turnout, with Republicans enjoying a far larger turnout advantage than they did nationwide in states like Florida, while Democrats did better than they did nationwide in states like Pennsylvania. And since our estimates suggest that the Republican turnout advantage nationwide was fairly modest — more modest than the party registration figures suggest — the estimates also show that neither party enjoyed a significant turnout advantage in many battleground states where Democrats turned in above-average performances.In Northern battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Ohio, Biden and Trump voters turned out at nearly identical rates, according to our estimates.In contrast, Trump voters were likelier to turn out than Biden voters by around 10 percentage points or more in states like Florida and New York. In practice, this meant that the Florida electorate most likely voted for Mr. Trump by double digits, even though he carried the state by just three points in 2020.Most states, including the key Sun Belt battlegrounds like Arizona and Georgia, fell in between the Northern battlegrounds and the red-wave states like New York or Florida.A decisive advantage among swing votersThe resilient Democratic turnout in many key Northern battleground states might seem like a key that unlocks what happened in 2022, but it explains less than you might think.According to our estimates, Biden voters only narrowly outnumbered Trump voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan. But Democratic candidates for Senate and governor won in landslides that greatly exceeded Mr. Biden’s margin of victory. Similarly, Trump voters outnumbered Biden voters in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada, where Democrats posted crucial wins that assured control of the Senate.Ultimately, the Democratic performance depended on something that went far beyond turnout: A segment of swing voters decided to back Democratic candidates in many critical races.For all the talk about turnout, this is what distinguished the 2022 midterms from any other in recent memory. Looking back over 15 years, the party out of power has typically won independent voters by an average margin of 14 points, as a crucial segment of voters either has soured on the president or has acted as a check against the excesses of the party in power.This did not happen in 2022. Every major study — the exit polls, the AP/VoteCast study, the Pew study published this week — showed Democrats narrowly won self-identified independent voters, despite an unfavorable national political environment and an older, whiter group of independent voters. A post-election analysis of Times/Siena surveys adjusted to match the final vote count and the validated electorate show the same thing. It took the Democratic resilience among swing voters together with the Democratic resilience in turnout, especially in the Northern battlegrounds, to nearly allow Democrats to hold the U.S. House.In many crucial states, Democratic candidates for Senate and governor often outright excelled among swing voters, plainly winning over a sliver of voters who probably backed Mr. Trump for president in 2020 and certainly supported Republican candidates for U.S. House in 2022. This was most pronounced in the states where Republicans nominated stop-the-steal candidates or where the abortion issue was prominent, like Michigan.Democratic strength among swing voters in key states allowed the party to overcome an important turnout disadvantage in states like Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. That strength turned Pennsylvania and Michigan into landslides. And it ensured that the 2022 midterm election would not go down as an easy Republican victory, despite their takeover of the House, but would instead seem like a setback for conservatives. More