Biden fundraising 'dream team' creates $140 million war chest to take on Donald Trump
US President Biden arrives to board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on December 20, 2023, as he departs for Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

President Joe Biden's $140 million campaign war chest has been bolstered by a group of loyal advisers and fundraisers that some party strategists call a "dream team" effort to defeat the likely Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.

The recent boom in fundraising can be traced primarily to five people: media executive and Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg, former State Department official Rufus Gifford, campaign finance director Michael Pratt, longtime Biden adviser Jen O'Malley Dillon and Julie Chávez Rodriguez, the president's 2024 campaign manager.

"They have kind of put together a dream team in fundraising," said Jim Messina, who served as former President Barack Obama's campaign manager for his successful 2012 reelection campaign.

Katzenberg has been speaking with donors to Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley and trying to recruit them to support Biden. "We are actively courting them," he told CNBC in a recent interview.

"I've only done it with a handful of super high end donors and I would just say it has been well received. No one has said 'leave us alone, we don't want to talk to you,'" said Katzenberg

Haley insists she is staying in the race, despite polls showing her on track to lose Saturday's Republican primary in her home state of South Carolina to Trump.

But Katzenberg pointed to Haley's support in places like New Hampshire, where she won 43% of the Republican primary vote, saying that suggests there is a slice of the Republican party ready to move on from Trump.

CNBC spoke to over half a dozen Biden advisers, party fundraisers and Democratic strategists for this piece, several of whom were granted anonymity to share private conversations. They described how key players in a constellation of groups -- Biden's campaign committee, joint fundraising committees, his chief outside political action committee and the Democratic National Committee -- have amassed $140 million to put towards the president's reelection.

Their efforts have given Biden a significant advantage in the money race over Trump, whose political fundraising operation is paying for both his campaign and his attorneys in a host of civil and criminal cases.

Trump's campaign and allied political organizations began the year with a combined $65 million in cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission records. This was after paying roughly $50 million to the former president's lawyers in 2023.

"President Trump's campaign is fueled by small dollar donors across the country from every background," Karoline Leavitt, the national press secretary for Trump's campaign, said in a statement to CNBC. "We are more confident than ever that he will take back the White House in November."