Trump far outpaces Democratic rivals in election fundraising

Donald Trump's re-election team on Thursday revealed that he sits atop a staggering campaign war chest, underlining the scale of the challenge facing the US president's Democratic rivals at the start of an election year.

The sprawling Democratic field meanwhile lost another candidate when Julian Castro, the only Hispanic in the 2020 field, announced he was ending his bid.

That leaves 14 candidates still in the running to take on Trump -- and competing for much-needed donations that keep a campaign's all-important ground game and advertising operations going.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, even as Trump was mired in a political scandal that resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives, he came out on top, raising a staggering USD 46 million.

It was his best fundraising period in a year that brought in USD 143 million for his re-election efforts, the campaign announced, easily outpacing the Democrats seeking to replace him.

And while Democrats are now effectively raising funds to compete against one another ahead of the general election in November, Trump has the luxury of stockpiling funds until his opponent is selected.

Trump's campaign now has an impressive $102.7 million in cash on hand.

"The president's war chest and grassroots army make his re-election campaign an unstoppable juggernaut," Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement.

"Democrats and the media have been in a sham impeachment frenzy and the president's campaign only got bigger and stronger with our best fundraising quarter this cycle."