The conventional wisdom this election season was that when it came for campaign funds President Biden was way ahead of former President Donald Trump. But in the wake of Trump’s felony connections, according to Politico, Trump has is now way ahead of Biden.

And part of that is do to some mega-MAGA donations from MAGA billionaires.

Consequently, the Democrats, Politico reports, are both “disappointed” and “depressed.”

Joe Biden’s campaign planned to bury Donald Trump in an avalanche of cash.

Instead, his allies are bracing for a slugfest without the benefit of a fatter wallet, as financial reports showed Trump outraising Biden in back-to-back months, hauling in huge sums after his 34 felony convictions and erasing Biden’s longstanding financial edge.

Democrats in recent days largely downplayed Trump’s new financial lead in the same way Trump’s allies had when Biden was running ahead in the money race — saying the president would have enough money to compete.

But privately, several Democratic strategists and donors were reeling.

“There was the strategy of raising all this money on the front end so we could have this huge edge,” said one Biden bundler, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The whole point of it was to come out with a sizable cash advantage and, you know, we’re now even and it’s June. … I have no other word for it other than ‘depression’ among Biden supporters.”

Another major Biden bundler, also granted anonymity, called the development “disappointing, but not surprising.”

In the 2024 money race, not only was Trump out-raising Biden, but he also had more cash on hand. And Republican megadonors, too, rolled out enormous checks for Trump in recent days, including $50 million from longtime GOP donor Timothy Mellon to a pro-Trump super PAC.

Several Biden donors insisted that they expected — and planned — for Trump to close the gap after he clinched the Republican nomination, comparing it to when Mitt Romney caught up to then-President Barack Obama in fundraising over the summer of 2012. Part of the disparity between the campaigns was that Biden was spending more heavily, building “out an unbelievable campaign structure in battleground states,” while “Trump has done nothing,” said Chip Forrester, co-chair of the Biden-Harris Southern finance committee.

So the “disappointment” and “depression” may not be a generalized feeling but the feeling of some. In running against Donald Trump and GOP, it would seem wise to (1) realize all assumptions can be destroyed in an instant (2)have detailed back up plans to respond to a development such as Trump getting mega-bucks from MAGA donors.

“That early money counted because it allowed for Biden to build out all of these offices, which have been cranking along, and that’s not something Trump can catch up on,” said Alan Kessler, a Pennsylvania-based donor. “Trump can’t get back February, March, April and May, when the Biden campaign was getting boots on the ground.”

The Trump campaign, for its part, has described its in-state infrastructure as “leaner,” relying far more heavily on outside groups to execute it.

Inside the Biden campaign, aides said that May was their second-best fundraising month of the campaign, both in its overall total and in grassroots fundraising, even without a major fundraising event. Like their donors, they pointed to their battleground staffing footprint, which includes 200 offices and a thousand staffers, as money well spent.

Outside the Beltway’s Stephen L. Taylor sums it up:

As James [Jpyner] noted in his post, the Biden campaign has been engaged in a number of early strategic moves, while Trump and the RNC have been dismantling their organization. Moreover, Trump has been siphoning resources to pay legal expenses.

I know Politico and others need the clicks, but the ongoing need to make everything into a horserace narrative is lazy and unhelpful.

I also expect that a lot of Biden fundraisers are happy to make it sound dire, as that is a great fundraising tool!

I have no broader analytical point to make. It is mostly just part of an ongoing lament about the poor quality of more political journalism.

AMEN.

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