Biden to tap tech, climate executives in California fundraising trip

By Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to California next week to raise campaign cash from tech and climate donors as he races to raise over a billion dollars for his re-election fight, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter.

Biden, who is almost certain to get the Democratic nomination, will attend a fundraiser hosted by Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Kevin Scott, his wife Shannon Hunt-Scott and Microsoft board member and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman on June 19, according to an invite sent by the Biden Victory Fund that was seen by Reuters.

The president will also attend a reception co-hosted by eight tech, climate and private equity entrepreneurs and investors including Dan Kalafatas, Hadley Mullin, Steve Silberstein and Mark Robinson.

California's Governor Gavin Newsom, who shelved his own presidential ambitions for 2024 and backed Biden earlier this year, will also be present at the second event, according to another invite.

"The Democratic Party's united front in support of President Biden's reelection is unprecedented," said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, campaign manager for Biden-Harris 2024.

"While MAGA Republicans burn cash in their primary, competing for whose agenda is the most extreme, the president's campaign will be capitalizing on the opportunity to raise significant resources that will help expand on our winning 2020 Biden coalition," she said.

The campaign, which officially started on April 25, plans to ramp up fundraising events in coming months. It is planning more than 20 fundraisers with Biden and three other top campaign representatives across the second half of June, the campaign said in a statement.

Amazon , Alphabet Inc's Google and Microsoft Corp's political action committees and employees were among the top five contributors to Joe Biden's candidate campaign committee in the 2020 election cycle. Microsoft senior executives donated more to the Biden campaign during the primaries than any other large tech company.

The tech industry was looking to strengthen relationships with Biden to ensure they had a voice in an onslaught of federal and state investigations into their business practices during the 2020 cycle.

In the runup to 2024, these donors will play a key role in helping Biden raise cash amid an uncertain economy and tepid enthusiasm among Democrats over the 80-year-old president's decision to run again.

"It can be a pretty ugly campaign coming up," Biden said at a New York fundraiser last month, where he spoke for more than 30 minutes. "It wasn't an automatic decision to run again."

Biden's campaign alone raised more than $1 billion during the 2020 cycle, with more than $700 million of that coming from online grassroots donations.

The Biden Victory Fund, a joint committee of Biden's reelection campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties, can collect contributions of up to $929,600 from individuals and $415,000 from political action committees during this cycle.

On Monday, first lady Jill Biden embarked on a fundraising tour to build up the reelection campaign coffers, telling a well-heeled Manhattan crowd of nearly 50 people that her husband "knows how to get things done."

Biden aides are keeping a close eye on June 30, when quarterly fundraising books close. Campaigns will announce these fundraising tallies in mid-July, and the figure will be a sign of how well Biden's money-raising efforts are going.

So far, his campaign has only held a handful of events, largely for donors and volunteers. Two fundraising events Biden held last month in New York raised more than $3 million, according to a person familiar with those totals.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)