The co-chair of President Biden’s now-disbanded campaign expressed anger at big donors who decided to withhold donations, suggesting they forced Biden to abandon his reelection effort.
After Biden announced Sunday that he would not run for a second term, Biden campaign co-chairman Cedric Richmond told CNN. He claimed that wealthy donors had “created a self-fulfilling prophecy” after Biden’s debate performance was panned.
“If you don’t have money, you can’t win. And they were going to blame the candidate. They were going to put the blame on Biden,” he said. “It was a no-win situation for a president who has accomplished so much.”
Richmond also had a clear message for those who turned their backs on Biden: “Now those donors have to try harder.”
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President Joe Biden addresses the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 24, 2024, about his decision to end his Democratic presidential reelection bid. (Evan Vucci via The Associated Press)
During an appearance on CNN on Thursday morning, Richmond clarified his statement that no significant donations had been made to the Biden campaign.
“Was I angry at the big donors? Of course,” he said.
Top Democratic fundraiser Lindy Lee expressed a similar sentiment before Biden’s announcement, telling Fox News Sunday that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to raise donations for Biden.
“Large-scale fundraising has slowed down. Major donors who had committed to giving huge six-figure, seven-figure checks have just disappeared, vanished off the face of the earth, retracted their pledges,” Lee said.
Li also said it would be a “catastrophic mistake” and a “political blunder” for Biden to ignore Vice President Kamala Harris if he were to withdraw.
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Vice President Kamala Harris was tasked with addressing the root causes of mass migration from Latin America from the start of the Biden administration. (REUTERS/Kevin Mohat/Pool)
Harris raised $100 million between Sunday afternoon, when Biden ended his reelection effort and endorsed his vice president as his successor as the Democratic presidential nominee, and Monday night, her campaign announced Tuesday morning.
The Harris campaign also touted the contributions it received from more than 1.1 million donors in the wake of the president’s shocking news, 62% of whom were first-time donors.
The Harris campaign has noted the surge in fundraising, highlighting in an emailed statement Monday afternoon that the amount raised was “the largest 24-hour fundraising raise in the history of a presidential election.”
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The one-day fundraising easily eclipsed the roughly $53 million raised by former President Trump’s campaign, and the Republican National Committee released the amount it raised through its online digital fundraising platform in the first 24 hours after Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in a criminal trial in New York City nearly two months ago.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
