In a show of fundraising prowess, President Joe Biden's reelection campaign said it raised $10 million in the 24 hours following his State of the Union address on Thursday, a record day since he launched his 2024 bid.

What You Need To Know

  • The Biden campaign said they raised $10 million in the 24 hours following his State of the Union address on Thursday, a record day since the president launched his reelection bid

  • The influx of cash comes as former President Donald Trump’s campaign apparatus is struggling to raise more than its spending
  • The Biden campaign is trying to flex its financial muscles to claw back support after months of disappointing polling

  • The the 81-year-old Biden stars in a new ad for his campaign backed by $30 million in airtime and social media ad space in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina over the next six week

The influx of cash comes as former President Donald Trump’s campaign apparatus is struggling to raise more than its spending and as Biden’s campaign is trying to flex its financial muscles to claw back support after months of disappointing polling. 

“The president’s State of the Union address reminded so many of our supporters who is fighting for them, and the stakes of this election for our freedoms, our rights, and our democracy,” Biden’s campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. “We send our condolences to the other guy and his flailing, poor campaign.”

His State of the Union, which some polling suggests was well received by viewers, was heralded by Democrats as exactly what he needed amid widespread voter concerns about his age and dissatisfaction with his job performance.

“I said to my colleagues, ‘I don’t know if that was Joe Biden or Joe Louis,’” Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock said of the speech on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, referencing an all-time great heavyweight boxer.

Born in 1942 — squarely in the middle of Louis’ 12-year reign as world champion — the 81-year-old Biden stars in a new ad for his campaign backed by $30 million in airtime and social media ad space in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina over the next six weeks.

“Look I’m not a young guy, that’s no secret. But here’s the deal: I understand how to get things done for the American people,” Biden says in the ad before rattling off a list of his administration’s achievements and pledging to restore Roe v. Wade as “the law of land” if reelected. “For four years, Donald Trump tried to pass an infrastructure law and he failed. I got it done.”

The $30 million ad spend and the fundraising boasts are coming as the president’s team is working to counter narratives his poor polling spells trouble for November. Instead, they argue, they can use their massive war chest — $130 million as of the end of January, with $42 million raised that month alone — to expand their base of support as Trump’s campaign bleeds cash. In 2023, the GOP frontrunner’s campaign finance apparatus spent around $50 million of his just under $200 million donations on legal expenses as he was arrested, indicted and charged four times with a total of 91 felony criminal counts and battled multiple civil cases. His campaign committees ended up spending more than they took in.

Despite the former president’s campaign and personal financial woes, he is more popular than Biden, polls in recent weeks have shown. Biden’s approval rating of around 38% is virtually even with his all-time low, according to the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. Recent major, national head-to-head polls mostly show the candidates within a few points of each other. But Biden, his campaign and his allies have argued polls don’t tell the whole picture.

“I think that as we move through this election, and it becomes clearer to people that we have a binary choice, the contrast couldn’t be more stark between about who’s ready to serve in the White House,” Warnock said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, speaking of voters in his state. Polling there consistently shows Trump up by more than six percentage points. “We've seen both of these men serve in the White House. That choice is clearly Joe Biden and Georgians will get it right.”

With Trump all but wrapping up the nomination this week, Biden hit the ground running and followed up his State of the Union with campaign events in Pennsylvania and Georgia on Friday and Saturday. Next week, he’ll be in New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan. Vice President Kamala Harris was dispatched to rally Latino support in Las Vegas on Saturday.

In his State of the Union address, Biden referred to his “predecessor” 13 times He dinged Trump for his election denialism and role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, for convincing Republicans to abandon bipartisan immigration reform and for the three Supreme Court justices he appointed who helped overturn Roe v. Wade. 

“Folks, it’s not hyperbole to suggest our freedoms are literally on the ballot this November,” Biden said in Georgia, emphasizing the thesis of his reelection pitch. “Get out the vote. Vote, vote, vote.”