Two well-connected Democratic Party consultants who work closely with top party donors confirm to Fox News that there has been a major slowdown in President Biden’s fundraising over the past week.
The news comes as Biden continues to push back against a rising chorus of calls from within the Democratic Party for the president to step aside and end his 2024 re-election campaign following last month’s disastrous debate performance against former President Trump, his Republican challenger.
‘People are starting to tap the brakes a bit. They want to see how it’s going to play out,’ one of the bundlers, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, told Fox News.
The other bundler – who also asked for anonymity – concurred, emphasizing that ‘major donors are pausing’ until ‘things are settled.’
The development was first reported yesterday by NBC News, with stories soon after from a handful of other news organizations, including CNN and Politico,
Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt, responding to the stories, said that they were ‘not accurate.’
‘On grassroots fundraising, the first seven days of July were the best start to the month on the campaign — and many of those were first-time donors. On the high-dollar side, we’ve had folks max out since the debate, as well,’ Hitt said in a statement.
The president, in a call earlier this week with top donors, tried to reassure them and argued that he is still the best candidate to defeat Trump in November.
However, actor George Clooney, who is among Biden’s biggest supporters and donors in Hollywood, and who was one of the hosts of a mega-fundraiser last month in Los Angeles with Biden and former President Obama that hauled in $28 million for the president’s campaign, urged Biden to step aside on Wednesday.
The Biden campaign touted that they hauled in a staggering $38 million in fundraising in the immediate aftermath of the June 27 debate in Atlanta.
Biden is scheduled to appear at several high-dollar fundraisers this month, Fox News has confirmed, including one in Austin, Texas, early next week, and a West Coast swing at the end of the month.
However, organizers for at least one Chicago-area fundraiser scheduled during next month’s Democratic National Convention have decided not to proceed with their event, a Democratic source confirmed to Fox News. A spokesperson for the Biden campaign says the event was not affiliated with their official fundraising schedule.
Following his extremely rough debate performance in his first face-to-face showdown with Trump, Biden has been attempting to prove that he still has the stamina and acuity to handle the toughest and most demanding job in the world. He is trying to prove that he has the fortitude to defeat Trump.
The debate was a major setback for Biden, who at 81 is the oldest president in the nation’s history. His halting delivery and stumbling answers at the showdown in Atlanta sparked widespread panic in the Democratic Party and a rising tide of public and private calls from within his own party for him to step aside as its 2024 standard-bearer.
Since the debate, 10 House Democrats and one in the Senate have publicly called on Biden to end his re-election bid and a growing number of both House and Senate Democrats have publicly and privately warned that the president will lose to Trump in November.
Biden, in a letter sent to congressional Democrats on Monday as they returned from the July 4 holiday recess, reiterated that he’s ‘firmly committed to staying in this race’ and argued that ‘the question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it is time for it to end. We have one job. And that is to beat Donald Trump.’
‘Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us,’ the president added. ‘It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.’