As fate would have it, Tuesday night’s Democratic debate happened to coincide with the deadline to file financial disclosures with the Federal Election Commission. Everyone’s paperwork was in long before the debate except one campaign’s: former Vice President Joe Biden. His campaign waited until the last minute, literally, as the debate ended an hour before the deadline. Now we know why he waited.

Biden has $9 million in the bank. That’s far less than Bernie Sanders’s $33.7 million, Elizabeth Warren’s $25.7 million, or Pete Buttigieg’s $23.4 million. Heck, even Kamala Harris is in better shape with $10.5 million.

NEWS: Joe Biden has $8.98 million cash on hand Sanders: $33.7 million

Warren: $25.7 million

Buttigieg: $23.4 million

Harris: $10.5 million — Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) October 16, 2019



His campaign has been spending like crazy to try to maintain his frontrunner status and it hasn’t been working. Now, he’s going into the dead period of the holiday season with much less than competitors as campaigns attempt to build their ground game in early states. Sometimes, that isn’t very expensive with generally smaller states slated early, but 2020 is different. California’s primary is only a month after the Iowa caucus and building a ground game there takes millions of dollars just to be competitive.

Opinion

As hard as it is to believe considering how high he was polling just a couple of months ago, this news could mean his chances of securing the nomination are essentially nil. Seriously. It’s conceivable that unless he gets a major fundraising bump from the debate, in which he performed acceptably but not great, he may not have enough gas in the tank to make it into March.

Biden’s biggest problem is the passion, or lack thereof, within his base. Yes, a lot of Democrats still believe he has the best chance of taking on President Trump head-to-head, but they’re not embracing his policy proposals with the vigor that surrounds his four main competitors or even his rising competitor in the moderate lane, Andrew Yang.

The Biden campaign is going to have to hold a ton of fundraisers, including big-money donors, from now until February if he’s going to have the resources to have a real shot. With 1/4th the cash that Bernie has on hand, it may be too late for Joe.



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