Clinton, Obama Attending High-Profile $25 Million Biden Fundraiser

The event features prominent guests like Queen Latifah, Cynthia Erivo, Lizzo, and Lea Michele.

Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are scheduled to attend a $25 million fundraising event in support of President Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential bid on Thursday night.

The fundraiser will take place at the Radio City Music Hall in New York. The campaign expects to attract over 5,000 supporters to the event. In addition to Presidents Obama and Clinton, the fundraiser will be attended by guests including Queen Latifah, Cynthia Erivo, Lizzo, Lea Michele, Ben Platt, and Mindy Kaling. The event will involve a conversation between Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Biden which will be moderated by Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

President Obama has been spending more time in the White House lately as the Democrat leaders convene to keep the presidential seat within the party.

President Obama will not be campaigning aggressively at the moment but is expected to visit major cities and college campuses in the fall, according to a CNN report.

“This historic raise is a show of strong enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice President Harris and a testament to the unprecedented fundraising machine we’ve built,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-chair of the Biden campaign, said in a statement.

Tickets are priced at $225, with people willing to donate more able to spend time with the presidents. A photo with all three is priced at $100,000. A donation of $250,000 earns donors access to one reception, and $500,000 gets them into an even more exclusive gathering.

The $25 million tally for the New York City event includes money from supporters who handed over cash in the weeks prior to the fundraiser for a chance to attend.

“Unlike our opponent, every dollar we’re raising is going to reach the voters who will decide this election—communicating the President’s historic record, his vision for the future and laying plain the stakes of this election,” Mr. Katzenberg said.

Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Biden share decades of history at the pinnacle of Democrat leadership.

At one point, all three of them were on a collision course during the Democrat presidential primary in 2008. Presidents Biden and Obama sought the nomination, as did President Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton. President Obama came out on top, and chose President Biden as his vice president while Hillary Clinton was appointed secretary of state.

As President Obama’s two terms were ending and the 2016 election was approaching, he nudged Hillary Clinton to the forefront as his preferred successor and dissuaded President Biden from running after Biden’s elder son died of cancer.

Ms. Clinton lost to President Trump in 2016, and in 2020, President Obama privately helped clear a path for President Biden to the Democrat nomination that year.

Trump Versus Biden

While the Biden campaign is optimistic about the Democratic candidate’s chances of winning the upcoming elections, polls show the public swaying toward former President Donald Trump.

A March 2 poll by The New York Times and Siena College found that President Trump was leading President Biden among registered voters by five percentage points. Another poll by USA TODAY/Suffolk University found President Trump having a narrow two percentage point lead over President Biden.

Americans also have a more favorable view of President Trump than Biden, which could play into the former president’s favor.

A poll by The Economist/YouGov in late February found that only 40 percent of respondents termed President Biden as a “very” or “somewhat” strong leader. In contrast, 57 percent of respondents saw President Trump as a “very” or “somewhat” strong leader.

As to fundraising numbers, President Biden is leading President Trump in this regard. Trump’s campaign and his “Save America” political action committee reported they had more than $37 million on hand by the end of February, according to an AP report that analyzed filings with the Federal Election Commission.

In contrast, the Biden campaign had $155 million in hand by February-end. The $25 million fundraising event will boost President Biden’s funds even more.

While President Biden pulls in support from the two former Democrat presidents, Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), said Democrats are “hemorrhaging voters” from their side.

“They’re hemorrhaging all these voters because we have a unique opportunity right now to compare two presidents … People remember how much better life was for them when Donald Trump was in office. You compare that to the last three years of Joe Biden as president,” she said in a Monday interview with Fox News.

“People want common sense. They want their life back. They want a better life and an easier life. And they know who delivered it for them. It was Donald Trump. And that is why at the RNC, we are very focused on this. We’re going after all of those voters. Donald Trump is picking them off one by one.”

A recent Mitchell-MIRS poll found that President Trump is doing “a much better job” of solidifying his support base. President Trump “is getting 90 percent of the Republican vote with only 2 percent going to Biden.”

“Biden on the other hand is only getting 84 percent of his base and more importantly, he is faced with the embarrassing situation of giving away 12 percent of his vote to former President Trump.”

The Associated Press contributed to the report.