© Reuters. U.S. President Joe Biden waves to members of the information media on his approach to board Marine One to journey to Ohio from the South Garden of the White Home in Washington, U.S., February 16, 2024. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Picture
By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif./WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden laid out a part of his imaginative and prescient for a second time period on Tuesday, from strengthening U.S. healthcare to letting Donald Trump’s tax cuts expire, throughout a fundraising journey to California as he steps up his re-election marketing campaign.
Biden’s three-day swing by the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas kicked off after his marketing campaign and Democratic Occasion allies stated they raised greater than $42 million in January and have $130 million cash-on-hand for a probable normal election contest in opposition to former President Trump, a Republican.
Biden has been holding common fundraisers to fill his coffers forward of what’s anticipated to be a bruising combat to remain within the White Home, however he has not spoken commonly about what he intends to do with a second time period if re-elected.
“I’d like to speak in regards to the future and what it means to complete the job,” he stated in the beginning of a Beverly Hills occasion to a crowd that included actress Jane Fonda.
“Trump’s $2-trillion tax minimize, which is about to run out, overwhelmingly helped the very, very wealthiest of us and never the overwhelming majority of the American individuals. ‘End the job’ means eliminating Trump’s tax minimize, closing loopholes.”
He additionally listed lowering the deficit, strengthening the healthcare legislation generally known as the Reasonably priced Care Act, and making housing extra reasonably priced, in what could possibly be a preview of subjects in his State of the Union tackle set for subsequent month.
Although the fundraisers in California are targeted on high-dollar donors, his marketing campaign stated on Tuesday its January consumption was fueled largely by small-dollar donors giving cash on-line.
“January’s fundraising haul – pushed by a powerhouse grassroots fundraising program that continues to develop month by month – is an indeniable present of power to start out the election yr,” marketing campaign supervisor Julie Chavez Rodriguez stated in a press release.
The totals embrace cash contributed to the Biden marketing campaign, the Democratic Nationwide Committee and their associated joint-fundraising committees.
Trump’s election marketing campaign has not reported January figures, however did elevate $19 million over the past three months of 2023, down from below $25 million within the third quarter and nicely below the $33 million reported by Biden’s marketing campaign.
Trump figures don’t embrace associated joint-fundraising committees. His marketing campaign ended final yr with about $33 million within the financial institution, in opposition to almost $46 million for Biden’s marketing campaign.
Biden’s newest money haul comes as he has shaken up his re-election bid, sending prime White Home aides Mike Donilon and Jen O’Malley Dillon to his Wilmington, Delaware-based marketing campaign to assist oversee technique and planning amid Democrats’ issues at a rocky begin and shaky polling for the incumbent president.
Biden and Trump stay neck-and-neck within the contest for the White Home, a current Reuters/Ipsos ballot confirmed, with the previous president backed by 37% of respondents and Biden supported by 34%.
The ballot was carried out after Particular Counsel Robert Hur launched a report declining to cost Biden for taking categorized paperwork when he left the vice presidency in 2017 however criticizing his reminiscence and psychological acuity.