With his party facing stiff political headwinds, President Joe Biden has authorized a transfer of $15 million from the Democratic National Committee to bolster his party’s House and Senate campaign committees, part of what Democratic officials say is the largest cross-party mobilization ever for a midterm election.
Biden informed House and Senate leaders of the cash influx during separate meetings at the White House on Wednesday, NBC News has learned. The sit-downs with Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich.; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y.; and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also offered Democrats a chance to discuss their political strategy face to face with a president who wants to play a major role in the midterm races, understanding that candidates in tough races may want him at arm’s length in the fall.
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi and I had a productive meeting with the President during which he made one thing clear - he is all in on the midterms, and that starts with a significant investment in House races,” Maloney said in a statement to NBC News. “If we stand together in pursuit of victory, we will hold the House in 2022.”
An NBC News poll late last month indicated that 72 percent of voters feel the country is on the wrong track, an ominous sign for Democrats, who control the White House, House and Senate. The poll also found that 61 percent of Republican voters said they were very interested in the midterm elections, compared to just 47 percent of Democrats.
The transfer comes after the DNC raised $151 million in 2021, which the party said was the best off-year haul in its history. The $15 million transfer — split equally between the DCCC and DSCC — follows a $20 million effort the DNC launched to set up coordinated campaigns in eight key battleground states to support candidates up and down the ballot. Democratic officials say the first-of-its-kind partnership between campaign committees aims to “maximize efficiency, leverage various political interests and ensure the infrastructure we build in 2022 has maximum positive impact heading into the re-election cycle.”
Those states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — have key Senate and gubernatorial races but will also be critical in the 2024 presidential election for Biden or whoever ultimately leads the Democratic ticket.
The DNC said it’s used additional resources to improve its technological infrastructure, support party-building efforts in all 57 states and territories, and ramp up efforts to support voter mobilization efforts even as dozens of GOP-led states have enacted restrictive voting laws.
Party and White House officials appeared eager to demonstrate a seamless partnership among top Democrats with the White House following NBC News reporting last week that DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison considered stepping down early amid tensions with Biden aides over key strategic decision-making.
CORRECTION (Feb. 3, 2022, 4:35 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the total amount raised by the Democratic National Committee in 2021. It was $151 million, not $81 million (which was the committee's grassroots fundraising total for the year).
