Massive ad buys drove most of the campaign’s spending.
President Joe Biden’s campaign ramped up spending aggressively in March, flexing his cash advantage over former President Donald Trump with massive media buys.
Biden’s campaign spent $29.2 million in March alone, according to campaign finance records filed late Monday night. That’s more than four times the amount he spent in the previous month, when he dropped about $6.3 million.
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His campaign still managed to add to its cash total, however, thanks to $43.8 million in new contributions, more than half of which came to the campaign through joint fundraising committees. He ended the month with $85 million cash on hand. Even Trump’s advisers have conceded they will have less money than Biden, while insisting they will have enough to compete. The bulk of the president’s spending last month came as advertising. His campaign spent $21.8 million on media buys and production, according to a POLITICO analysis of his campaign spending.
The president’s reelect launched an aggressive advertising campaign and national tour for a “month of action,” following the State of the Union in early March, as the president tries to close a persistent polling gap with his rival.
Biden’s campaign also continued to staff up throughout March, adding about 50 staffers to its payroll over the course of the month. Payroll was the campaign’s largest expense category after media buys, with $2.3 million spent in March.
Biden has relied on a much healthier financial operation to try to chase down Trump in the polls. His campaign previously bragged about having $192 million in the bank at the end of last month between the campaign, the Democratic National Committee and affiliated fundraising committees. Trump, by comparison, said he had $93.1 million in his warchest between his committee, the Republican National Committee and joint fundraising committee.
In a series of filings on Monday, fundraising committees affiliated with Trump and the RNC detailed a significant ramping up of fundraising, showing deep-pocketed Republican donors starting to coalesce around Trump.
Detailed financial disclosures for the first quarter of the year for many fundraising vehicles for both Trump and Biden were due on Monday. Records for March for the Biden and Trump campaigns — along with the RNC and DNC — are not due until Saturday, but both Biden’s campaign and the DNC filed early. The Trump campaign and RNC disclosures, when they are eventually submitted, will give a more complete picture of the former president’s campaign finances.
