The campaign of US President Joe Biden has raised more than USD 1 million through online fundraising in 24 hours after his speech on the January 6 Capitol riots anniversary, The Hill reported on Monday.
This comes after Biden on Friday launched a “full-throated” attack against former President and likely GOP opponent Donald Trump, warning Americans that Trump’s re-election would pose a “threat to American democracy.”
The president zeroed in on January 6 to mark the third anniversary of the US Capitol riots and argued in his remarks that democracy is on the ballot in 2024.
In response to the 24-hour fundraising haul, the Biden campaign noted that they see preserving democracy as a political winner for the president in 2024.
“In election after election, democracy and freedom are mobilising issues for the American people. In 2024, that will be no different, and we are encouraged by the strong grassroots enthusiasm we are seeing around the President’s core campaign message,” Rob Flaherty, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, told The Hill.
Notably, the speech was Biden’s first major general election speech and was delivered near Valley Forge, Pa., a significant symbol of the American Revolution.
He focused on Trump — calling him a “loser” at one point — and underscored what he sees as the stakes in a rematch against Trump in November.
“A former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election,” Biden said.
“He’s done so because he values power over principle, because he sees his own interest as more important than his country’s interest and America’s interest and because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or our Constitution,” he added.
Trump, in response to the speech, accused Biden of “fearmongering” and suggested the president was only attacking him on the issue of democracy because he could not run on other issues, The Hill reported.
“Biden cannot talk about a single issue that matters to hardworking Americans because he has failed you and betrayed you,” Trump said.
“Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure. Other than that he’s doing quite well,” he added.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is leading incumbent President Joe Biden in key swing states that will decide the fate of the 2024 presidential race, The Hill reported. Trump leads Biden in hypothetical match-ups both with and without third-party options on the ballot in states including Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, according to fresh polling.
A CNN poll also showed Trump leading Biden by 5 percentage points in Georgia, a state Biden carried in 2020 by roughly 12,000 votes. The poll also found Trump leading Biden by 10 points in Michigan, where Biden won by about 1,55,000 votes in 2020.