First on CNN: Biden directs an additional $18 million to House and Senate Democrats in final push to hold on to majorities

By Phil Mattingly, CNN

President Joe Biden has directed the Democratic National Committee to immediately transfer an additional $10 million to the House and Senate Democratic campaign arms and offered an additional $8 million for the two groups through fundraising in the lead up to Election Day, according to a Democratic official.

The new infusion of DNC funds brings the total transferred to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to $27 million, a record for the party and nearly double the $13.9 million made in 2010, the previous high-water mark.

The additional $8 million commitment will be raised through a combination of in-person and virtual fundraisers and use of Biden’s grassroots fundraising list.

The new investment comes as Democrats are engaged in furious political battles in districts and states across the country as they seek to hold on to their narrow House and Senate majorities. It also provides a window into a role Biden has fully embraced in recent months, even as he’s eschewed major campaign rallies with frontline candidates: fundraiser-in-chief.

Biden, for his part, has staked out an optimistic view of the final two weeks of the campaign season, even as Republicans have pressed to turn signs of polling momentum into significant gains in the House and a pathway to flipping the Senate.

“The polls have been all over the place,” Biden said Monday in remarks at the Democratic National Committee. “Republicans ahead. Democrats ahead. Republicans ahead. But it’s going to close, I think, with seeing one more shift: Democrats ahead in the closing days.”

Still, Democrats are seeking to overcome history and acute economic headwinds as the enter the final stretch of the campaign cycle. The first midterm election for a president’s party has nearly always led to losses, including some large-scale wipeouts that cost Biden’s predecessors majorities in 2010 and 2018.

The DNC, in an effort to bolster the party’s prospects, started supporting coordinated campaigns in critical battleground states a full eight months earlier than past election cycles. Those states — which are now all center stage as the tightest races in the country — were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Shortly after Biden was elected in 2020, he and his top political aides moved to build the DNC into their primary outside political apparatus. Biden turned over his campaign assets to the party committee, including his grassroots fundraising list and his campaign’s distributed organizing program. Both have been key components of the DNC’s party building and midterm organizing efforts.

“President Biden’s 2020 campaign assets have helped power an unprecedented $155 million in grassroots fundraising to date, the committee’s best midterm cycle for grassroots fundraising ever, and thus leading to the historic levels of investments in support for party building and direct campaign investments,” Sam Cornale, the DNC’s executive director, wrote in a memo circulated on Tuesday and obtained by CNN.

The DNC has continued its multi-year investment in data and technology infrastructure after widespread criticism the party had fallen behind its Republican counterpart in the wake of the 2016 election

For Biden, whose five decades in politics have long centered around bolstering the party, the financial resources and investment have become a critical piece of Democratic efforts to buck history — and maintain what his advisers view as a pathway to holding onto the Senate and battle out dozens of races in the House.

But the investments in state parties, infrastructure and data also serve a longer-term purpose for a party that has long battled over where — or whether — to centralize party resources. As Biden weighs his decision on whether to run for reelection, something he has said he plans to do, but hasn’t yet finalized, the DNC has become the hub for a campaign infrastructure in waiting.

“Under President Biden’s leadership, the DNC has not only invested earlier and more robustly than ever in this year’s midterm elections to ensure our candidates have the resources necessary to build strong campaigns — we’ve made sure Democrats across the country have the resources they need and are laying the groundwork for cycles to come,” Cornale wrote in the memo.

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