While President Biden’s $72-million campaign chest haul in the second quarter will warm the hearts of his supporters even as his approval numbers continue to falter and many younger Democrats yearn for a younger 2024 candidate, it is worth keeping in mind he has a couple of challengers from his own party.
There is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., of course, who has $4.5 million in the bank, according to Politico’s comprehensive Q2 campaign fund reporting. According to the report, most of RFK Jr.’s donors typically give to Republicans, however – so the anti-vaxxer who claims that Chinese and Jewish people are immune to COVID-19 may suck most of his votes from MAGA Republicans.
There also is spiritual/inspirational speaker Marianne Williamson, who ran in 2020 and launched her ’24 campaign last March, when she said she was very happy that Biden beat incumbent President Trump last time. Williamson will not be any serious threat to Biden unless some bizzarro-world reversal of 2016 occurs in the next 12 months.
Likely Biden’s greatest threat aside from Trump building popularity beyond the MAGA core if he carries his myriad legal issues to martyrdom is No Labels, the “middle-of-the-road” group that appears ready to launch a third-party movement in the name of bipartisan “unity.” Former Republican governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, who was considered a possible anti-Trump candidate for the GOP nomination a couple of years ago last week said he will not run for president under the No Labels label.
Read the right column for the full list of candidates seeking the Republican nomination for president.
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Biden Campaignomics
MONDAY-WEDNESDAY 7/17-19/23
President Biden and the Democratic National Committee reported raising $72 million in the second quarter among joint fundraising committees, Politico reports, and had $77 million in cash as of June 30. Q2 donations came from 394,000 contributions, according to the report.
“In my world, we actually have a single word for when something like this happens. It’s called a blockbuster,” the Biden campaign co-chair, Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg said. “Importantly, this is the first real referendum on President Biden’s job that he’s doing. And it’s a record-setting landslide.”
While considered a success, Barack Obama had raised $86 million in the second quarter of 2011 and Donald J. Trump had raised $105 million in the second quarter of 2019 for their respective re-election campaigns.
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In the Center Column -- Read our latest data news feature from Stacker, “Landmark Supreme Court Cases and Chief Justices of Their Time,” an excellent roundup of 230 years’ worth of the most important key decisions affecting our democracy.
In this column, below…
•The House’s $886-billion National Defense Authorization Act will go nowhere in the Senate. In normal political years a bi-partisan bill, hardline Republicans added amendments to curb the military’s ability to offer abortion, transgender and racial equality provisions to U.S. service members.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) intends to bring the bill to the full Senate for markup before the August recess, leaving September to bring the two chambers to a consensus bill before the budget is due the 30th of that month.
•Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) has announced he will run for re-election to the House in 2024, rather than challenge for retiring Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-MD) seat.
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