Facing a polling deficit with seven months to go until the November election, President Biden on Thursday will receive some help from his two most recent Democratic predecessors in the White House.
Biden will team up with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at a fundraising extravaganza in New York City that the president’s campaign says will bring in over $25 million for his re-election bid.
The star-studded event will include what’s being billed as an ‘armchair conversation’ with the three presidents moderated by late night TV talk show host Stephen Colbert and musical performances from Lizzo, Queen Latifah, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo, and Lea Michele.
The campaign says over 5,000 people will attend the gathering, which is being held at the storied Radio City Music Hall in midtown Manhattan.
Tickets range from $225 – to get in the door – to $100,000 for a photo with all three presidents – and up to $250,000-$500,000 to attend an intimate reception with Biden, Obama, and Clinton. The fundraising haul will help Biden boost his already formidable cash advantage over his Republican challenger, former President Donald Trump.
‘The numbers don’t lie: today’s event is a massive show of force and a true reflection of the momentum to reelect the Biden-Harris ticket,’ campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg touted in a statement.
And Katzenberg argued that ‘this historic raise is a show of strong enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice President Harris and a testament to the unprecedented fundraising machine we’ve built.’
Just as important, the teaming up of the three presidents is intended as a show of force to rally the Democratic base behind Biden.
‘This is a great event that showcases the Mount Rushmore of modern Democratic presidents,’ longtime Democratic strategist Maria Cardona told Fox News.
Cardona, a veteran of the Clinton White House who later served as a surrogate for Obama’s two presidential campaigns and Biden’s 2020 election and reprising that role this year, said the three presidents ‘will make an unequivocal statement of how meaningful the Democratic agenda has been to this country and to American families.’
While the president holds the upper hand over his predecessor in the fundraising battle in their election rematch, Trump currently enjoys the early edge over Biden in public opinion polling – both in most national surveys and in many of the surveys in the six key battleground states the incumbent narrowly carried to win the White House in 2020.
That includes a five-point advantage for Trump over Biden in both a head-to-head and a five-way ballot match up in a Fox News national poll conducted March 22-25 and released on Wednesday.
The fundraiser comes less than a week after Obama spent a couple of hours at the White House, meeting with his former vice president. But it was far from a social gathering.
The two presidents, joined by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, headlined an organizing call highlighting the 14th anniversary of the landmark healthcare law known as the Affordable Care Act.
Obama’s stop at the White House comes as he reportedly has warned Biden that the 2024 rematch with Trump will be extremely close.
Senior Obama adviser Eric Schultz emphasized that the former president ‘will do all he can’ to support Biden and ‘he looks forward to helping Democrats up and down the ballot make the case to voters this fall.’
‘Our strategy will be based on driving impact, especially where and when his voice can help move the needle,’ Schultz added in a statement.
The Trump campaign pilloried the fundraiser, with spokesman Steven Cheung arguing that the event is a sign the president needs to ‘trot out some retreads like Clinton and Obama.’
The 81-year-old Biden, who four years ago made history as the oldest American ever elected president, will continue to face questions about his mental and physical durability, even his recent vigorous State of the Union address.
The president also needs to show that he can energize younger voters, progressives, and Black and Latino Americans, who are all key parts of the Democratic base. Biden is also facing primary ballot box protests – materializing in ‘uncommitted’ votes – over his support for Israel in its war in Gaza against Hamas.
But the former president is also dealing with plenty of problems.
Trump, who last year made history as the first president or former president to face criminal charges, now faces four major trials and a total of 91 indictments – including federal cases on his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and on handling classified documents. There’s also a massive civil fraud judgment that Trump is appealing. He will have to juggle his appearances in court with his time on the campaign trail.
The 77-year-old Trump will also need to court the sizable block of Republican voters who backed Nikki Haley in the GOP nomination race. The former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor was Trump’s last remaining rival before she ended her White House campaign earlier this month. Haley’s support is shining a spotlight on Trump’s weakness with suburban and highly educated voters.