Biden campaign raises $6.3 million on day one
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden began his third White House bid with a fundraising show of force, raising $6.3 million in his first day as a candidate.
The 24-hour total, as announced by the campaign Friday, would best the rest Democratic field to date, topping Beto O’Rourke’s first-day $6.1 million total. Bernie Sanders, whose 2016 campaign helped turn grassroots, online fundraising into a litmus test for party candidates, brought in $5.9 million on his first day.
The former vice president's campaign said it received donations from 96,926 individuals in all 50 states and U.S. territories. Among donations made online, 97 percent were in amounts less than $200, for an average online donation of $41.
Biden’s first full day as a candidate included not just a vigorous online fundraising push, but also a high-dollar fundraiser in Philadelphia Thursday evening.
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who helped organize the event, told CNN Friday that that event alone helped raise three-quarters of a million.
“You’re part of the folks that brung me to the dance as they say a long time ago, from ’72 on,” Biden told several hundred donors at the home David Cohen, a Comcast executive. Comcast is the parent company of NBC News.
In his remarks, Biden also made clear that he would be focusing his campaign on rebuilding the middle class, calling it the “North Star” of his candidacy.
“You all are generous and successful people. But I look around at all of you and you’re the same people who understand that there’s a basic bargain that used to exist in this country, that if someone supported the enterprise that succeeded, they got to benefit from it just as well as everyone else. … It’s not the case anymore,” he said. “My north star of what we’re going to talk about in terms of the economy is restoring the middle class, but looking at economic dignity. Not just the GDP. What is happening to people. Do they have security?”