Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

Former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to battle for third place in New Hampshire Tuesday after a fourth-place finish in Iowa. Those lukewarm results at the polls are coupled with financial numbers that don’t paint a rosy picture for the Biden campaign.

Roughly one-third of Biden’s campaign cash has come from donors who gave at least $2,800 — the maximum allowed for the primary election — meaning a significant chunk of his supporters can no longer financially back his bid for the nomination. Any other contributions to Biden exceeding that figure cannot be used until the general election.

Biden is much more reliant on big money and lavish fundraisers than most of his primary opponents. He takes in just 36 percent of his campaign cash from those giving $200 or less, compared to 56 percent and 53 percent for Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), respectively.

The former vice president’s primary opponents also haven’t run into the problem of maxed-out donors quite like Biden has. Just 4 percent of the campaign cash for both Sanders and Warren came from donors giving $2,800 or more. The figures are slightly higher for Biden’s more moderate rivals, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

Biden is buoyed by a closely tied super PAC, Unite the Country, which is providing him air support in New Hampshire and Nevada. Backed by deep-pocketed Biden donors including billionaire real estate magnate George Marcus and Masimo co-founder Joe Kiani among others, the group raised nearly $3.8 million from 70 donors through the end of December. It has spent $6.5 million boosting Biden on the airwaves.

Still, the group spent millions in Iowa only to see Biden finish fourth, barely ahead of Klobuchar. And Biden is losing ground in national polls as billionaire Michael Bloomberg spends unprecedented sums on the airwaves to siphon some of his supporters. While Biden entered the new year with less than $9 million in the bank, Bloomberg has unlimited resources and could keep his campaign afloat for eternity.

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Unite the Country sent out a memo this weekend, first obtained by Politico, asking supporters to “dig deep” and give big to the group. The super PAC references Biden’s money troubles, saying he “is not a favorite among the check writers” and “the first front runner never to be fully resourced” but assures donors that Biden won’t have trouble raising funds in the general election.

Some establishment Democrats are concerned that Biden, Buttigieg, Bloomberg and Klobuchar will split the moderate vote while Sanders will keep his base, leading to a Sanders win or a brokered convention. Unite the Country’s memo reiterates those concerns and argues that Democrats would lose crucial down-ballot races if Sanders is nominated.

Some major Biden donors expressed concern at his fourth-place Iowa finish, openly wondering who they should support if his campaign were to further flounder. While some other 2020 Democrats have announced how much they raised in January — candidates formally file that information on Feb. 20 — Biden has only said that the campaign is “doing fine” and is raising half-a-million dollars a day. Klobuchar said she raised $2 million in 14 hours after last week’s Democratic debate, and Buttigieg claimed he raised $2.7 million since the day after the Iowa caucuses.

Once the frontrunner, Biden has fallen behind Sanders in a national poll while Bloomberg has gained ground with African-American voters. His polling losses coincided with attempts from President Donald Trump to link Biden to corruption in Ukraine. Before acquitting Trump on charges that he used the U.S. government’s power to coerce Ukraine into announcing an investigation into the Biden and his son, some Republican senators publicly attacked Biden.

Biden is betting on a strong performance in South Carolina, where he currently leads opinion polls, to jumpstart his campaign.



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