DNC announces 'record' fundraising haul as GOP flounders

The Democratic National Committee is flush with cash as the party gears up for what may be one of the most high-stakes presidential elections in U.S. history.

On Thursday, DNC chairman Jaime Harrison tweeted that, when accounting for contributions from joint fundraising committees and affiliated PACs as well as direct donations, Democrats raked in $12.3 million as of December.

"That brings the DNC’s cash on hand to $20 million, according to aides — which, they tell us, breaks the party’s cash-on-hand record heading into a presidential election year," Harrison posted to X (formerly Twitter).

Harrison contrasted his party's good financial fortune with the chaotic finances of the Republican National Committee. In a subsequent tweet, Harrison linked to a Newsweek article, which reported that the RNC's $9.96 million cash on hand was the lowest amount of money the GOP had available to spend since the 2016 election. This trend has reportedly been ongoing, with the DNC outperforming its counterpart in the cash on hand metric by a two-to-one margin in the last two consecutive reporting periods.

One Republican told Newsweek that the party had been "demoralized" since the onset of the Trump presidency, with donors likely not enthusiastic about writing checks to the party that has seen significant losses in each federal election cycle. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats captured a whopping 41 seats and regained control of the House of Representatives. Republicans went on to lose the White House in 2020, and lost ground in the US Senate in 2022. Even though the GOP won back the House with a razor-thin majority in 2022, it has so far failed to effectively wield power amid relentless infighting among the House Republican Conference.

"The RNC's electoral record since 2017 speaks for itself," RNC member Patti Lyman told the Washington Post.

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has led the party since 2017, has been facing increasing pressure to resign from Trump allies, particularly in the wake of the GOP's multiple failures in the most recent round of state elections. Under McDaniel's tenure, Republicans this year failed to retake the governor's mansion in the GOP stronghold of Kentucky, lost control of the Virginia legislature and failed to stop a pro-abortion rights ballot initiative in Ohio, which has a Republican trifecta government.