When he announced his third-quarter haul, former Vice President Joe Biden revealed he had raised less than fellow Democratic candidates Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. But according to Biden’s latest filings with the Federal Election Commission, his campaign only has $9 million cash on hand — far behind his Democratic rivals.
Cash on hand is important because it’s money that can be used on much-needed campaign expenditures like payroll, political advertisements, travel, and more.
Biden has raised just over $22 million since he launched his bid for the presidency in April. That’s compared with Sanders and Warren, who hold $34 million and $26 million in their war chests, respectively – which raises questions for his campaign momentum. According to the latest YouGov-Economist poll, Biden trails Warren, but is ahead of Sanders.
While the fundraising numbers lead many to doubt Biden’s frontrunner status, his campaign continues to spend money at a blistering pace, spending more in the third-quarter than it raised. Nearly $1 million was spent in travel alone as Biden paid to fly on private jets.
Though $9 million is still quite a large sum, running a political campaign is costly, and elections only continue to get more expensive as politicians pay top dollar to unseat opponents. With Warren starting to take the lead in the polls, her cash on hand totals will only help in her quest to cement herself as the Democratic nominee. The senator announced her third-quarter campaign totals roughly two weeks ago – she pulled in $24.6 million as she inched closer to the fundraising strength of Bernie Sanders. Sanders still leads the pack with fundraising, pulling in $25.3 million in Q3.
Biden still remains ahead of Sen. Kamala Harris who raised $11.6 million in the third quarter. She maintains a slight cash on hand lead over Biden, however, with $10 million in her campaign coffers. Rounding out the bottom of the better-known candidates, businessman Andrew Yang surged in his fundraising totals, pulling in $10 million in the latest quarter — a 257% increase on the $2.8 million he raked in during Q2. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker raised $6 million in Q3, posting the best quarter of his campaign so far.
But Biden — and the others – will need much more cash if they hope to beat President Trump in the general election. In total, Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC) raised $125 million in the third quarter, a record-breaking fundraising sum. According to Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale, the president has $156 million in cash on hand with nearly $310 million raised so far this year.
Kristin Myers is a reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
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