Biden raises $26M after picking Harris as VP

Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman and Kristin Myers discuss the outlook on presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s campaign finances.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Of course, we've been covering the updates out of the political front here, as Democratic nominee Joe Biden named his running mate in Senator Kamala Harris. And it's been a shot in the arm for his fundraising efforts here. The hour after naming Kamala Harris as running mate was supposedly Joe Biden's best 60 minutes of fundraising over the whole course of his campaign.

And here to break down why that's important in his battle to keep pace with President Trump on the fundraising front is Yahoo Finance's Kristin Myers, who is always digging. Kristin, you're always digging in the fundraising numbers constantly. Put the shovel away for a second, and give us the update.

KRISTIN MYERS: Ah, you know me. I love campaign finance, Zack. So as you mentioned, first hour after Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris was the best hour for his campaign to date. But they actually raised $26 million in just 24 hours after picking her as his VP pick. Now, if you're looking at the ActBlue tracker-- ActBlue, as you and I have discussed many, many times, Zack, is actually the method through which Democrats are able to gain most of their donations. A lot of small dollar donors can go onto the ActBlue website and toss money over to whichever Democratic campaign that they want.

Now, they have a lovely little ticker and tracker on their main site. And according to that tracker, about $11 million came in in just the four hours after the announcement. And that first hour being the best for the campaign ever, that was actually confirmed by campaign aides. The camp also said that they actually had the biggest fundraising day ever.

Now, you mentioned why this is incredibly important, Zack. So we've talked a lot about the kind of tit for tat going on between both Trump and Biden's camps, at least when it comes to fundraising numbers. Biden, typically, throughout this entire process, even when he was running for the Democratic nomination, lagged behind Bernie Sanders, lagged behind Elizabeth Warren, in terms of the money that he was able to raise month after month, quarter after quarter.

And at one point, I mean, he was only down to about $9 million cash on hand, which is not good news for anyone running for a presidential race, but particularly for anyone who wants to go up against President Trump, who has raised a ton of money. I mean, he said that he wants to raise and spend a billion dollars in this race, and he is absolutely on pace to smash those figures, Zack, if he hasn't actually hit that $1 billion number already.

So for the most part right now, Trump has actually been leading in that fundraising game, except for the last couple of months, where we've actually seen Joe Biden and the DNC be able to join forces together for fundraising. They've actually been able to top President Trump in those months of May and of June for those fundraising totals.

That-- fundraising totals did, however, slip for the month of July. The Trump campaign and the RNC actually brought in $165 million in July, Zack. Biden and the DNC just behind about $25 million less. They only brought in about $140 million. I say "only," but this VP pick should give them a nice little boost going in. So we'll have to see what the August totals are going to be. I imagine that they actually might top the president's yet again, particularly as Kamala Harris is now out there, stumping hard already, first day on the "job," so to speak.