President Biden raised tens of millions of {dollars} for his reelection bid in Silicon Valley on Friday as he poked at former President Trump and argued that his marketing campaign was being underestimated.
“The press doesn’t wish to write about it, however the momentum is clearly in our favor, with polls transferring towards us and away from Trump,” he mentioned, noting that 1.6 million folks have donated to the marketing campaign, almost all lower than $200 every. He mentioned his marketing campaign has opened 150 places of work in battleground states “and Trump has opened zero places of work. And it’s not simply because he’s on trial.”
California donors bankroll presidential campaigns on either side of the aisle, and Biden and Trump have each raised extra within the state for his or her reelection bids than anyplace else, based on the Federal Election Fee. The president is predicted to return to Southern California for a fundraiser in June.
Biden’s Friday journey to California was his first since a February fundraiser on the Beverly Park property of media mogul Haim Saban. The Israeli American billionaire prompted scrutiny this week due to an e mail he despatched to senior Biden aides criticizing the administration’s determination to place a cargo of weapons to Israel on maintain as a result of they might be utilized in an offensive towards a densely populated metropolis in southern Gaza.
Biden encountered protesters on either side of the difficulty within the Bay Space, in addition to in Seattle, the place he flew after the California go to. Because the president’s motorcade drove to a fundraiser hosted by Marissa Mayer, the previous chief government of Yahoo, it encountered folks holding Palestinian flags and indicators that mentioned “Defund Israel” in addition to one other group waving Israeli flags.
Biden didn’t tackle the difficulty at three fundraisers in California and Washington state on Friday, together with the occasion hosted by Mayer, the place tickets value as much as $50,000, based on the information web site Puck. An earlier fundraiser Biden headlined on the Portola Valley dwelling of Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Solar Microsystems, value as much as $100,000. The 2 occasions have been anticipated to lift $4 million.
California First Companion Jennifer Siebel Newsom attended the Mayer occasion. Biden known as the 2 girls a supply of inspiration and famous his efforts to create a various administration.
“These two women right here for my part — and I imply this sincerely — are emblematic of how America is altering,” the president mentioned. “They’re extremely competent and so they’re extremely succesful and so they’re altering the entire emotion of what constitutes success and what will be carried out.”
Silicon Valley has grown right into a fundraising juggernaut for political candidates and overwhelmingly favors Democrats.
Within the 2024 presidential election, Biden and related teams backing his marketing campaign have raised $17.1 million from the communications and electronics trade, which incorporates tech firms, based on an evaluation of FEC information launched April 22 by the nonpartisan nonprofit Open Secrets and techniques, which tracks electoral funds. Trump has raised $1.7 million.
Trump did obtain the backing of some notable tech leaders in his profitable 2016 marketing campaign, akin to billionaire Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder who made historical past that 12 months who mentioned from the rostrum of the Republican Nationwide Conference that he’s homosexual earlier than Trump was nominated because the GOP candidate.
Thiel and another tech leaders backed away from Trump after the tumult of his presidency and within the aftermath of the Jan. 6 rebellion on the U.S. Capitol that tried to halt the certification of the 2020 election outcomes.
Within the 2024 Republican major, some backed different GOP candidates however have reportedly returned to the fold since Trump grew to become the presumptive Republican nominee.
“President Trump is constructing a historic and unified political motion to make America nice once more, receiving greater than 90% approval from Republican voters, profitable Independents by double digits, and selecting up historic positive factors with longtime Democrat constituencies,” marketing campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt mentioned in an announcement.
“Anybody who believes in securing the border, rebuilding the financial system, restoring American vitality dominance, and ending the wars Joe Biden has created around the globe is welcome to hitch President Trump’s motion to make America nice once more,” Leavitt mentioned.
Nationwide GOP leaders predicted Biden would lose in November dispute his fundraising prowess.
“Everyone seems to be worse off underneath Joe Biden, however as an alternative of correcting his failed Bidenomics agenda or securing the border, Biden is rubbing elbows with donors to save lots of his flailing marketing campaign,” Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican Nationwide Committee, mentioned in an announcement. “It received’t work — voters know that Biden is unsuitable on the problems, and so they’ll vote President Trump again in to the White Home on November 5.”
First Girl Jill Biden was additionally in California elevating cash for her husband’s reelection marketing campaign — in Marin County on Thursday and in Beverly Hills on Friday on the dwelling of John Emerson, the U.S. ambassador to Germany underneath President Obama, and Kimberly Marteau Emerson, the spokesperson for the U.S. Info Company underneath President Clinton.
The occasion raised greater than $450,000, John Emerson instructed attendees, who included media mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, a co-chair of Biden’s reelection marketing campaign.
After recounting how Biden proposed marriage 5 instances, Jill Biden laced into Trump.
“Donald Trump is harmful to our households and to our nation,” she mentioned. “We’re the primary era in half a century to provide our daughters a rustic with fewer rights than we had. We merely can not let him win.”
The president, talking in Portola Valley, repeated jokes he has beforehand made in regards to the former president.
“Not everyone seems to be feeling the keenness as of late. The opposite day this man walked up, mentioned I’m in actual bother, quick on money, I don’t know what to do. I mentioned, ‘Donald, I can’t enable you,’” Biden mentioned.
