华盛顿-乔·拜登总统的连任竞选正在筹集大量资金。它有一个选举简而言之，这是一项为期两年的战略，旨在增加支出，提高支出速度。
拜登不仅打算在本月展示自己是一个筹款大国，而且他的竞选团队还在实地和广播上进行大量早期投资——希望创造巨大的组织优势，让共和党人唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)争先恐后地赶上。
然而，尽管大量涌入的资金给拜登和民主党带来了巨大的现金优势，但也越来越明显的是，拜登将需要这些资金。纵观特朗普在商界和政界的一生，他的挑衅行为为他赢得了近乎无限的自由媒体关注。与此同时，尽管拜登仍担任总统职务，但他经常努力通过自己的信息来消除噪音。
这意味着拜登将需要大量现金来覆盖战场州，在这些州，几千张选票可能意味着胜利或失败。此外，在一个更加分裂的媒体生态系统中，与传统广播和有线电视相比，媒体生态系统更倾向于流媒体服务，因此在接触千禧一代以及更年轻的选民方面存在挑战。千禧一代是他2020年联盟的重要组成部分。
拜登的组织和外联工作本月开始认真进行，竞选团队利用他的国情咨文作为跳板，在全国范围内开设了100个新的外地办事处，并将战场州的带薪工作人员人数增加到350人。目前，该公司还在进行一项耗资3000万美元的电视和数字广告宣传活动，目标群体包括黑人、西班牙裔和亚裔选民。
拜登竞选团队官员表示，现任总统组织优势的一个例子是，他在2月份的连任竞选中有480名工作人员，而特朗普和共和党全国委员会只有311名工作人员。
“我们正在扩大竞选总部和外地办事处，在特朗普和他的MAGA共和党人开设一个办事处之前就在全国各地雇用员工，”拜登周五在纽约举行的国家财政委员会会议上吹嘘道，该委员会包括来自纽约市内外的200名最大的捐助者和筹款人。
一个巨大的地面游戏劣势并没有阻止特朗普在2016年赢得总统大选，这是民主党人敏锐地记住的一个事实。
希拉里·克林顿(Hillary Clinton)2016年总统竞选的竞选经理罗比·穆克(Robby Mook)表示:“这是特朗普面临的顽固挑战之一。“特朗普是特朗普最好的组织者，特朗普可以在讲台上激励人们。”
但是，穆克补充说，拜登竞选团队正在做它需要做的事情，他指出，国情咨文是一个强有力的例子，表明如何有效地动员基础和利用反特朗普的能量，这将不可避免地在今年激励许多民主党人。
穆克说:“政治中最神奇和最可怕的部分是，在选举日之前你永远不会知道。“因此，如果我是他们，我不会想留下任何东西。拥有资源优势的最大好处是，你可以拥有所有这些不同的东西。”
甚至拜登的实体竞选活动今年的成本也可能要高得多。
与2020年不同，当时许多美国人因疫情而陷入困境，拜登需要更多地旅行，同时建立一个政治基础设施，这将比他上次在地下室发起的远离社交的虚拟竞选活动昂贵得多。
他的连任竞选也将有特朗普不必面对的费用，例如偿还联邦政府使用空军一号的费用。据竞选团队称，到目前为止，它已经报销了450万美元用于政治活动的总统公务飞机。
穆克说，关于如何战略性地投资竞选资金的决定永远不会像工作人员希望的那样灵活，不仅存在支出过多、过快的风险，而且在选举年支出过晚也有风险。
去年秋天和夏天，民主党人对拜登早期缺乏筹款和竞选活动感到焦虑。好莱坞编剧和演员工会的罢工也于事无补——这实际上使支持劳工的工会主席无法在这个长期为该党的政治抱负提供资金的地区筹集资金。
快进到现在，对他筹款行动的猜测已经减少。除了在全国各地的大型活动中吸金数百万美元——以及在一场以拜登为主角的活动中吸金2600万美元之外，巴拉克·奥巴马周四晚上，比尔·克林顿(Bill Clinton)——总统经常提到最近几周新增的50万名捐款人，称他在扩大自己的影响力。
民主党捐款人和筹款人说，现在，甚至对总统不冷不热的捐款人也在捐款。
好莱坞主要捐赠者和筹款人迈克尔·史密斯说:“我认为人们真的想听听他们有什么要说的。”他今年早些时候在洛杉矶举办了一场摇滚歌手蓝尼·克罗维兹的活动，上周又与总统夫人在棕榈泉举办了一场活动。吉尔·拜登。“他们意识到这是一项投资。”
特朗普竞选团队的官员承认，拜登和民主党可能会有更多的现金支出，不过他们认为，鉴于特朗普吸引媒体报道的能力，他仍将能够开展有效的竞选活动。
“我们的数字在线筹款继续飙升，我们的主要捐助者投资也在攀升，民主党人对特朗普总统的筹款能力感到害怕，”特朗普竞选团队的沟通主任张致恒说。“我们不仅在筹集必要的资金，还在部署战略资产，这将有助于特朗普总统重返白宫，并帮助共和党人越过终点线。”
但鉴于特朗普发表爆炸性言论的倾向，这也可能有利有弊，民主党人肯定会利用他们的现金优势进行广告宣传。特朗普因大量法院案件而产生的法律费用也肯定会拖累他的现金状况。记录显示，他的政治运作在过去两年中支付了至少8000万美元的法庭费用。
“特朗普承诺在第一天成为独裁者，暂停我们的宪法，并带回比1月6日更糟糕的政治暴力。他的MAGA议程是如此有害和极端，以至于成千上万摇摆州的共和党人投票支持妮基·黑利而不是他，即使在她退出后——多么独特!”拜登竞选团队发言人劳伦·希特说。“唐纳德·特朗普没有资源甚至没有意愿让这些关键选民回来。”
还有一个悬而未决的问题是，特朗普是否能够像2016年那样取得突破，当时他是一个政治新秀。或者像他在2020年大选期间所做的那样，当时他担任总统职务，在被封锁的美国人粘在电视上的时候无处不在。
民主党策略师乔什·施韦林(Josh Schwerin)说:“媒体格局和选民获取新闻的渠道已经发生了变化，因此基于特朗普主导主流媒体对话能力的假设应该受到质疑。”他曾在2020年总统竞选期间在民主党的主要超级政治行动委员会“优先美国”工作。
“从传统渠道获取新闻的选民越来越少，找到在他们面前获取信息的方法越来越难——而这需要钱，”他说。“两位候选人都必须这样做。这是拥有财务优势将对拜登竞选活动大有裨益的一个方面。”
Biden is lapping Trump when it comes to campaign cash — and he'll need it
WASHINGTON --President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is raising gobs of cash. And it has anelection-year strategy that, in a nutshell, aims to spend more — and spend faster.
Not only has Biden aimed to show himself off as a fundraising juggernaut this month, but his campaign is also making significant early investments both on the ground and on the airwaves — hoping to create a massive organizational advantage that leaves Republican Donald Trump scrambling to catch up.
But while the money pouring in has given Biden and the Democrats a major cash advantage, it’s also becoming clear Biden will need it. Throughout his life in business and politics, Trump’s provocations have earned him near limitless free media attention. Biden, meanwhile, has often struggled to cut through the noise with his own message despite holding the presidency.
That means Biden is going to need oodles of cash to blanket battleground states where a few thousand votes could mean the difference between victory or defeat. Add to that the challenge of reaching millennials, as well as even younger voters, who formed an important part of his 2020 coalition, in a far more fractured media ecosystem that skews toward streaming services over conventional broadcast and cable.
Biden's organizational and outreach effort began in earnest this month, with the campaign using his State of the Union address as a launching pad to open 100 new field offices nationwide and boosting the number of paid staff in battleground states to 350 people. It’s also currently in the middle of a $30 million television and digital advertising campaign targeting specific communities such as Black, Hispanic and Asian voters.
In one example of the incumbent president's organizational advantage, his reelection campaign in February had 480 staffers on the ground, compared with 311 to that of Trump and the Republican National Committee, according to Biden campaign officials.
"We’re ramping up campaign headquarters and field offices, hiring staff all across the country before Trump and his MAGA Republicans have even opened one single office," Biden boasted Friday in New York during a meeting of his national finance committee, which included 200 of his largest donors and fundraisers from in and around the city.
A massive ground game disadvantage didn’t prevent Trump from winning the presidency in 2016, a fact Democrats keenly remember.
“It’s one of the stubborn challenges of Trump,” said Robby Mook, campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid. “Trump is Trump’s best organizer, and Trump can motivate people from the podium.”
But, Mook added, the Biden campaign is doing what it needs to do, pointing to the State of the Union as a powerful example of how to effectively mobilize the base and harness the anti-Trump energy that will inevitably motivate many Democrats this year.
“The most magical and the scariest part of politics is, you never know until Election Day,” Mook said. “And so I wouldn’t want to leave anything on the table if I were them, and the great part about having a resource advantage is, you get to have all these different things.”
Even Biden’s bricks-and-mortar campaign is likely to be far more costly this year.
Unlike 2020, when many Americans were hunkered down due to the pandemic, Biden will need to travel more while also building a political infrastructure that will be far more expensive than the socially distanced, virtual campaign he waged from his basement the last time around.
His reelection campaign will also have expenses that Trump won’t have to confront, such as reimbursing the federal government for use of Air Force One. So far, it has reimbursed $4.5 million for use of the official presidential aircraft for political activity, according to the campaign.
Mook said decisions about how to strategically invest the campaign’s cash are never as nimble as the staff wants them to be, and there is not only a risk in spending too much, too fast — but also spending far too late in an election year.
Last fall and summer, Democrats fretted about Biden’s early lack of fundraising and campaign activity. Writers’ and actors’ guild strikes in Hollywood didn’t help, either — effectively sidelining the pro-labor union president from raising money in a region that has long bankrolled the party’s political ambitions.
Fast forward to the present and the second-guessing about his fundraising operation has tamped down. Aside from raking in millions at high-dollar events around the country — and bringing in $26 million at an event featuring Biden,Barack Obamaand Bill Clinton on Thursday evening — the president has frequently pointed to the 500,000 new donors who have contributed in recent weeks, arguing that he's expanding his appeal.
Now, even donors lukewarm to the president are contributing, Democratic Party donors and fundraisers say.
“I think people really want to hear what they have to say,” said Michael Smith, a major Hollywood donor and fundraiser, who hosted a Los Angeles event earlier this year featuring rocker Lenny Kravitz and held another event last week in Palm Springs with the president’s wife,Jill Biden. “They realize this is an investment.”
Trump campaign officials concede that Biden and the Democrats will likely have more cash to spend, though they argue that Trump will still be able to run an effective campaign given his ability to attract media coverage.
“Our digital online fundraising continues to skyrocket, our major donor investments are climbing, and Democrats are running scared of the fundraising prowess of President Trump," said Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump campaign. "We are not only raising the necessary funds but we are deploying strategic assets that will help send President Trump back to the White House and carry Republicans over the finish line.”
But given Trump’s propensity for making explosive remarks, that can also cut both ways, which Democrats are sure to exploit by using their cash advantage to run ads. Trump’s legal fees from the myriad of court cases he is tied up with are also sure to be a drag on his cash situation. Records show his political operation has shelled out at least $80 million to cover court costs over the past two years.
“Trump promises to be a Dictator on Day 1, suspend our Constitution and bring back political violence even worse than January 6. His MAGA agenda is so toxic and extreme that hundreds of thousands of Republicans in swing states voted for Nikki Haley over him, even after she dropped out — how unique!” Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said. “Donald Trump has no resources or even the will to bring those critical voters back.”
There’s also the open question of whether Trump will be able to break through in the same ways he did in 2016, when he was a political novelty. Or as he did during the 2020 election, when he held the presidency and was a ubiquitous presence at a time when locked-down Americans were glued to their TVs.
“The media landscape and where voters get their news has changed and so assumptions based on Trump’s ability to dominate mainstream media conversations should be questioned,” said Josh Schwerin, a Democratic strategist who formerly worked at Priorities USA, the Democrats’ primary super PAC during the 2020 presidential campaign.
“Fewer voters are getting their news from traditional outlets and finding ways to get information in front of them is getting harder and harder — and that takes money," he said. "Both candidates are going to have to do this. And this is one place where having a financial advantage is going to be a big benefit to the Biden campaign.”
