Biden-Harris ticket rakes in millions after running mate announcement
Joe Biden is seeing a massive surge in fundraising after announcing Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. On Thursday, the Democratic presidential ticket hauled in $48 million in just 48 hours.
On Tuesday afternoon, Biden unveiled his pick for vice president after months of speculation and a grueling vetting and interview process. By choosing Harris, the campaign is making history with the first Black woman and Asian-American on a major party presidential ticket.
After the news broke, a Biden-Harris campaign aide tweeted that the hour of the announcement had been the best single hour of fundraising for the entire campaign. It quickly became the best fundraising day for the campaign so far, too, with the team raking in $26 million in 24 hours, including contributions from 150,000 first time donors.
On Wednesday, Biden and Harris appeared in Wilmington, Delaware together for the first time as running mates where they each delivered formal remarks before participating in a virtual grassroots fundraiser that evening.
Of the $48 million cash haul, $39 million of it poured in online, according to the campaign, touting its grassroots momentum heading into the final few months before the election.
The two-day influx of donations is nearly half of what Biden and Harris' primary campaigns raised in all of 2019 combined. Last year, Harris' bid brought in a total of $40 million before she exited the race. Biden's campaign raised $60 million through December.
The fundraising surge comes after earlier this month the Trump campaign, Republican National Committee and joint fundraising committees outraised Biden, the Democratic National Committee, and joint committees by about $25 million last month, with a combined $165 million cash haul compaared to Biden's $140 million.
But the former vice president had nearly closed the gap in cash on hand with the president. Biden's campaign entered the third quarter of the campaign with more than $294 million in its war chest, compared to the president's $300 million.
The Trump campaign, too, has also been fundraising off of Biden's selection of Harris as his vice presidential pick. It has not revealed how much has been raised off those efforts yet.