Jason Lange, Alexandra Ulmer, Stephanie Kelly
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An outside group Donald Trumpgroups running for president have spent significantly more money in recent months than groups seeking the Democratic president's reelection. Joe BidenAccording to a Reuters analysis of campaign finance records.
Pro-Trump spending groups have spent more than $25 million since Trump secured the Republican nomination on March 6, according to Federal Election Commission records, while Biden allies have spent more than $15 million in the same period.
MAGA Inc., the largest pro-Trump super PAC, is set to report Thursday that it had $93.7 million in the bank at the end of May, up from $33 million at the end of April, according to a person familiar with the group's finances who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Both campaigns have focused much of their recent spending on television attack ads, hoping to motivate the small minority of American voters who will decide the outcome of the Nov. 5 election.
Trump campaign allies say the spending offensive is aimed at countering Biden's early fundraising advantage: The Biden campaign reported $84 million as of the end of April, compared with $49 million for the Trump campaign.
“There's a strategic effort to undermine Biden's financial advantage,” said another MAGA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Trump's fundraising deficit has been compounded by legal battles, which have led to mounting legal costs and made him the first U.S. president to be convicted of a felony.
Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, are neck and neck in national opinion polls, but Trump has a slight edge in battleground states that will decide the election.
Both campaigns declined to comment but are due to report their latest campaign finance statistics on Thursday.
Unlike political campaigns, super PACs have no limits on how much they can raise, but they are not allowed to coordinate ad buys with the candidates they support and must report spending as soon as it occurs.
MAGA has spent about $18 million supporting the Trump campaign, much of it on a barrage of television and digital ads attacking Biden's immigration policies and arguing that he is too old to serve a second term.
By contrast, Future Forward, the largest super PAC backing Biden, has reported new expenditures totaling less than $1 million to the FEC since March 6, despite having $57 million in the bank as of the end of April.
A senior Democratic official with ties to the group, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group plans to spend heavily in the final months of the election, as it did in the 2020 election, when Biden defeated Trump.
Another Democratic super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, has spent more than $11 million so far.
Pat Dennis, the group's president, said the group is targeting female voters by running ads on issues such as abortion rights in battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“We've been really focusing on the summer and getting things ready for the people who are going to take over in the fall,” he said.
(Reporting by Jason Lange, Alexandra Ulmer and Stephanie Kelly; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Stephen Coates)
