By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s Democratic allies are planning a private Chicago fundraiser with billionaire Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker as soon as this month, two people briefed on the president’s plans say.
A specific date for the tentative event had not been confirmed and a spokesman for Biden’s presidential campaign declined to comment.
Biden’s early big-money donor events will test the president’s appeal with wealthy voters, with the goal of raising hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several months. The campaign, which officially launched April 25, plans to ramp up fundraising events this month.
Advisers believe a strong cash haul will set Biden, who is almost certain to get the Democratic nomination, apart from a Republican Party that is picking its candidates from a large field that includes front-runner Donald Trump, the former president defeated by Biden in 2020. Biden raised more than $1 billion in 2020.
Two more entrants, Former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, are set to enter the race this week.
Pritzker is viewed as an important ally for Biden and a rising star in the Democratic Party. He donated more than $1 million to Biden ahead of 2020, and has pledged to help finance the Democratic National Convention, which is being held in Chicago on Aug. 19-22, 2024.
Biden aides are keeping a close eye on June 30, when quarterly fundraising books close. Campaigns announce these fundraising tallies in mid-July, and the figure will be a sign of how well Biden campaign’s money-raising efforts are going.
So far, Biden’s campaign has only held a handful of events, largely for donors and volunteers. Two fundraising events Biden held last month in New York raised over $3 million, according to a person familiar with those totals.
In the weeks since the launch, Biden has dealt with a debt ceiling crisis that was resolved over the weekend with his signing of a bipartisan deal.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington and Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia; additional reporting by Nandita Bose; editing by Heather Timmons and Angus MacSwan)
