Biden and Trump are both in a world of hurt. But Biden has the cash to fix his problems.
Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both in a world of hurt.
But who would you rather be?
Biden is an incumbent president seeking a second term with depressingly low approval numbers, especially among key components of the coalition that helped him win office four years ago.
Trump is a four-time indicted one-term former president with two crushing civil judgments levied against him this year who needs to focus his fundraising as much – if not more – on paying for his defense lawyers as on retaking the White House.
Biden at least holds a strong edge in fundraising over Trump, money he can use to lure back disaffected voters in the eight months until the general election.
A victory for Trump these days amounts to an appellate court ruling that he only has to put up $175 million as bond to appeal a New York civil case judgment that found his business finances were rife with fraud.
Trump's finances takes control of the RNC
The contrast is stark. Biden's campaign had just over $71 million in the bank at the end of February. Trump had $33.5 million by then. If you're Biden, a better than 2-to-1 advantage must feel pretty good.
The divide extends to the candidates' parties, too. The Democratic National Committee had $26.5 million on hand on Feb. 29. The Republican National Committee had $11.3 million in the bank. Another Democratic edge that exceeds 2-to-1.
The finances for Trump and the RNC look even more grim when you consider the contortions his party is willing to endure to back him, perhaps at the expense of all those other Republicans seeking other offices in the Nov. 5 general election.
And the timing is off this year for the Republicans, after a primary season where no challenger came close to defeating Trump. The general election started in earnest even before Super Tuesday. We're off to the races. And Trump is behind when it comes to money, even as he fares better than Biden in some key swing-state polling.
The Associated Press noted last week that Trump's new joint fundraising effort with the RNC, known as the Trump 47 Committee, directs money from donors first to his campaign account and then to a political action committee called Save America that funds his legal defenses. Any leftovers go to the party.
Will religion influence 2024 election? Americans want a religious president. They just don't see Trump or Biden that way.
Trump only took full control of the RNC three weeks ago and already the party is a third-class participant in its own affairs. Not much of a shock there. His daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, made clear when she was seeking the post as co-chair that the party would be all about – and only about – Trump moving forward.
Trump's legal fees and problems continue to mount
The legal bills keep coming for Trump, now set to start his first criminal trial in mid-April, this one in New York over hush money payments to a porn star. He's accused of falsifying records to keep quiet an affair that threatened to besmirch his reputation during the 2016 election.
Trials also loom in Georgia related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election there, in federal court in Washington, D.C., over his behavior before and during the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and in federal court in Florida on classified documents that he was required to return to the government after leaving office.
It's not all dark clouds. Trump's social media website, Truth Social, went public this week and his stake could be worth more than $4 billion on paper, which he could use to fund his own campaign if it becomes real cash. But the deal requires Trump to hold that stock for at least six months, unless the company's board grants him a waiver, which could tank the stock price.
That would be a look: Deflating a stock held by supporters.
Save America, which has been paying Trump's legal bills, has been kept alive by another Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., which has transferred more than $52 million in just under nine months from last May to Feb. 1.
The lies that Trump tells: Trump supporters love the lies he spews during rallies. The rest of the voters won't.
Trump likes to portray his legal prosecutions as political persecution. That plays with his hard-core supporters. But his sex life is about to be thrust into a spotlight next month in a very expensive spectacle.
That's an ugly scene as voters mull which way to go.
Biden mocks Trump but has his own problems to fund
Biden, as you might imagine, is having some fun with that. His campaign on Tuesday proclaimed that he has visited every battleground state in the country while Trump has been largely sequestered at his Florida mansion in between trips to various courtrooms.
"Trump's campaign is weak and cash-strapped," Biden's campaign proclaimed.
The incumbent has a few weaknesses of his own. Poll after poll this year have shown Biden losing ground with Black and Latino voters, who are either drifting toward Trump or looking at third-party candidates.
Trump sees the opportunity. The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump is urging Republicans in swing-state Michigan to increase their efforts to recruit Black voters in Detroit.
Biden sees the disadvantage of a crumbling coalition. His campaign is in the middle of a six-week, $30 million advertising blitz in swing states. The campaign on March 8 promised to "prioritize high-impact and non-traditional TV opportunities," including on Black- and Hispanic-owned outlets.
A pair of ads in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin launched recently to "underscore what a disaster Donald Trump was for Black America," Biden's campaign said. The campaign on Saturday hit the airwaves with an ad noting anti-Latino language that is a standard part of Trump's stump speech.
Will Biden's head start on campaign money help him in November?
Trump has legal vulnerabilities, and his money must follow his focus on that fight. According to a Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll last week, 2 in 5 Americans said a criminal conviction would affect their likelihood to support Trump in November.
More than a third of independents said conviction would reduce the chances of them voting for him.
Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.
Biden has political vulnerabilities, and his money is being used to directly address them. Does he get there? He has less than eight months to close those gaps, to stitch back together his coalition.
A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult Poll released Tuesday showed Trump leading Biden in four swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina – while the candidates were tied in two – Pennsylvania and Michigan – and Biden was ahead in Wisconsin.
That's not a great look for an incumbent. But Biden's numbers were on the rise in six of those seven states, compared with polls in November and January, growing more competitive with Trump in every state except Georgia.
Biden has the jump on money, and his early advertising efforts seem to be moving the needle on polling. Trump is still mired in a legal morass, heading into a salacious circus in New York next month, more akin to his time as a reality television character than his one term as president.
If you had to pick a circumstance, which would you rather have?
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump has Truth Social stocks. Will it save his campaign funding?
