Money chase: Donald Trump and allies say they raised $65.6 million in March

WASHINGTON - Aides to former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Republicans raised $65.6 million in March, seeking to allay GOP concerns about President Joe Biden's advantage in campaign money.

A joint announcement by the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee said they ended March with $93.1 million cash on hand, though that would appear to still trail the Biden campaign pace of fundraising.

Trump "has again created a fundraising juggernaut among Republicans," said Michael Whatley, the recently elected chair of the revamped Republican National Committee.

Last month, the Biden campaign said it and the Democratic National Committee had $155 million on hand after raising $53 million in February.

Biden's team has not announced their fundraising figures for March, which included a massive fundraiser in New York City featuring former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

In recent months, Biden has been lapping Trump in terms of fundraising, in part because Trump also needs to raise money to pay legal fees associated with a raft of criminal indictments and civil court judgements against him.

The Biden campaign said it was unimpressed with Trump's latest fundraising, noting that the RNC has laid off people and cut back on operations.

In a memo, the Biden campaign said that Trump "has a serious general election problem. Not only is his cash-strapped campaign firing staff and closing community centers, he’s showing he has no path to building the coalition necessary to win 270 electoral votes."

Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa added that “Trump is spending what money he does have on everything but reaching out to the voters – and it’s obvious he doesn’t have the infrastructure, the donor base, or the broad appeal to win this election.”

Whatley, elected chair of the RNC last month after a shake-up engineered by Trump, said: "While he has been the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party for less than a month, the RNC and Trump campaign are one unified operation and focused on victory."

The Trump campaign team is scheduling a series of high-dollar fundraisers in the weeks ahead.

Susie Wiles, a senior adviser to Trump, said in a statement that the campaign and the RNC have been "steadily ramping up our fundraising efforts" to compete with the Democrats.

"Republicans may not be beneficiaries of the self interested largess from Hollywood and Silicon Valley elites," she said, "but President Trump is proud to be supported by donations from voters who are the backbone of this nation."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump and RNC say they raised $65.6 million in March