President Biden raises close to $7M from Texas fundraisers
NORTH TEXAS — President Joe Biden held two campaign fundraisers in the Dallas area Wednesday night and took in $2.5 million at the first event.
After a third event in Houston Thursday, a source familiar said Biden is expected to have raised close to $7 million from the three events.
The White House pool report said one of the hosts, attorney Russell Budd announced while speaking in the backyard of a home where the fundraiser took place before 100 people.
Budd introduced the president and called him the "hottest ticket in Texas."
The pool report quoted Biden as saying they were going to take Texas and North Texas Congressman Colin Allred would win the Senate race in November.
Among the officials attending, include Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, whose wife gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, Wednesday morning.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison also attended the fundraiser as well as Chris Korge, a top Biden Victory Fund official according to the pool report.
The president warned that former President Donald Trump intends to repeal the Affordable Care Act and about some of his other policies, "Look at the judges he put on the bench. He wants to do away with NATO."
Mr. Biden was also quoted as saying, "The problem isn't just going back to where Trump had the country. It's where he wants to take us now. Look to what he's saying. I hope we're all going to take it seriously. He means what he says. As crazy as it sounds, he means what he says."
The pool report said the president also spoke about economic gains during his administration and efforts to reduce the deficit, along with efforts to improve infrastructure. He called to do more on climate change and pointed to how inflation was dropping.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley released a statement about President Biden's fundraisers:
"After his border crisis opened the floodgates to deadly fentanyl and migrant crime across the country, Joe Biden tried and failed to sue Texas for enforcing immigration laws. Rather than showing up with solutions, he now looks to use Texas to fill his campaign coffers, and voters are taking note."
The president will be spending the night in the Dallas area at an undisclosed location after attending the two private fundraisers.
He will receive his daily briefing Thursday morning and then heads to Houston where he attend another private fundraiser before returning to the White House.
His visit to North Texas comes after he spent time campaigning in two battleground states out west: Arizona and Nevada. While there, he held public events.
But Texas is not a battleground state and a recent Real Clear Politics average of polls shows former President Trump leading President Biden by eight percentage points.
Regina Montoya of Dallas is Co-Chair of the Women's Leadership Forum at the Democratic National Committee or DNC.
She co-hosted one of the private fundraisers in the Dallas area.
"This is so important to me because I want to be sure everyone hears the message of President Biden and his achievements," Montoya said.
Polls show the president trailing former President Trump nationally and in the battleground states by as much as five and a half percentage points according to Real Clear Politics.
Montoya said this year the president's re-election team is ramping up much sooner than past re-election campaigns, which typically start around the political convention, which this year is in August for Democrats.
Montoya said fundraising and messaging are key.
"That's why it's important for the President to have the resources to really give people at their kitchen table exactly how his policies are going to help them," she said.
One issue the Biden-Harris campaign is pushing hard is abortion rights, especially in conservative states, including Texas, which have passed abortion bans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022.
"It's affecting people we know, it's affecting our daughters, it's affecting people we see every day and I think that is really something that the Biden administration has recognized, we have to be there for women."
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