Biden to headline DNC fundraiser Monday

President Joe Biden will headline a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee on Monday, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO. And, like the last one, the event won’t be in person.

“Let’s build that bank to fuel the Democratic campaigns of 2022,” Ajay Bhutoria, national finance committee at the DNC, wrote in the invitation.

Ticket prices for Monday’s event are $100,000, $50,000 and $36,500.

Biden spoke virtually at his first DNC fundraiser as president late last month as Democrats began ramping up efforts to build their war chest for the 2022 midterm elections. Losing control of either the Senate or House in 2022 would be a blow to the president’s agenda, though historically the party in power does suffer losses during the midterms.

“The DNC is going to need you, because here’s the deal: We won in 2020 as a unified party, and we need to stay unified and keep doing the big consequential things,” Biden said at the June 28 event. “If we make the right decisions in the next four years, in 50 years, people will look back and say this was the moment that America won the future. But we can’t do it without you.”

The DNC has raised $90.9 million so far this year, more than it did in the entire year of 2017, and raised $14.4 million in June, the largest off-year June fundraising ever, according to a DNC spokesperson. The DNC and its joint fundraising committee, the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund, had $67.6 million cash on hand at the end of June. But the Republican National Committee outraised the DNC in June.

An RNC spokeswoman said the RNC has raised $85 million so far for the 2021-2022 cycle and spent money to engage in election litigation and organize Blacks, Hispanics and Asian American voters in key states across the country.

“The RNC continues to build upon the successes of our data-driven ground game, and we look forward to holding Biden and Democrats accountable for their resounding failures when we take back the House and Senate in 2022,” RNC spokeswoman Emma Vaughn said.

The upcoming fundraiser for Biden is another attempt to tend to the Democratic Party’s political machinery and the down ballot races. The president returned to the campaign trail last week in person in an event for former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who is seeking to reclaim the governorship in November. Biden has also hosted a virtual fundraiser for Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a close ally who has subsequently said she will not run for re-election.

Biden has so far resisted doing in-person fundraising and likely will continue to do so as the rise of the Covid virus’ Delta variant has led to greater public health restrictions in the nation's capital and elsewhere.