[W]ASHINGTON — While Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Senate campaign coffers continue to grow, his 2016 presidential campaign still owes more than $300,000 to municipalities for security costs.
Sanders, an independent, has not said whether he will run for a third term representing Vermont in the U.S. Senate. However, filings from the third quarter of the year show him continuing to amass money.
Sanders’ Senate campaign had $5.9 million in cash as of the end of September, according to his most recent Federal Election Commission report.
Federal candidates were required to file reports Sunday detailing the money they had taken in between July 1 and Sept. 30.
Sanders brought in just over $1.95 million in contributions during that period, much of it in donations of a few hundred dollars or less that came from all over the country.
The campaign spent just shy of $1 million in operating expenses, according to the record.
Meanwhile, the third-quarter filings from the committee that handled Sanders’ 2016 Democratic presidential bid show that campaign still faces considerable debt.
Sanders owes $305,104 to municipalities across the country for security costs related to his presidential campaign events.
The debts include $117,047 to the Police Department in Santa Monica, California, and $44,013 to the police in Tucson, Arizona.
Sanders is unique among contenders in the 2016 presidential election in that he acknowledges the debts in his campaign filings.
President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton do not include those figures in their reports, though according to the Center for Public Integrity, municipalities billed both campaigns for costs related to election events.
The city of Burlington initially billed the Trump campaign for security costs associated with a January 2016 rally at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts. But the campaign never paid the bill, and the city opted not to go after the debt in court.
Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who is in the first year of his sixth two-year term in the House, reported having just over $2 million in cash on hand at the end of the third quarter.
He brought in $80,959 in contributions during the reporting period. Many of the 94 itemized donations were for more than $1,000, and several came from political action committees and lobbyists — including for RiteAid, Vail Resorts and KFC.
The senior member of Vermont’s delegation, Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat who secured his sixth term in November, has $1.8 million in cash.
Leahy’s campaign committee brought in $14,199 during the summer quarter.
