[S]en. Bernie Sanders raised $25.3 million since July, his presidential campaign announced Tuesday morning, the largest quarterly fundraising haul of any Democratic candidate in 2019.
The news comes as the Vermont senator has dropped to third behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in a number of polls. Sanders has also recently shaken up his campaign staff in New Hampshire and Iowa in an effort to revamp his presidential bid in those areas.
Sanders’ third-quarter results mark a substantial increase from Sanders’ fundraising total from this spring, between April and the end of June, when he only brought in $18 million — trailing Warren’s $19.2 million, Biden’s $22 million and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s leading $24.9 million.
The Sanders campaign did not say how much cash it had spent during the quarter, which saw him expand campaign infrastructure in Super Tuesday states as well as continuing to build up staff throughout the Rust Belt. Candidates must file campaign finance disclosures detailing their third-quarter fundraising and spending by Oct. 15.
Sanders’ fundraising total does not include an additional $2.6 million he transferred from his 2018 U.S. Senate bid and Friends of Bernie Sanders to his presidential bid.
The campaign said that since Sanders announced his intention to run for president in February, it has raised $61.5 million from 3.3 million individual donations for an average contribution of just $19. The Sanders’ camp added that almost 100% of his donors have not given the maximum allowable amount of $2,700.
In the days leading up to the third-quarter’s fundraising deadline, the Sanders campaign made a hard push for an impressive showing, sending emails at least twice a day to supporters asking for as little as $2.70.
In a statement, Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, said the Vermont senator is “proud” to be funding his presidential bid through small donations. Shakir also issued a warning to those on television and in the press who have written Sanders and the campaign off.
“Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign, and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution,” Shakir said.
A VTDigger analysis of Sanders’ campaign finance filings from 2016 compared to 2019 — not including the new donations — found that nearly 200 financial contributors who gave the Vermont senator $1,000 or more when he ran against Hillary Clinton have not donated to his campaign this time around and instead have given to Warren.
Warren, who has leapfrogged Sanders in national and statewide polls, has not yet released her fundraising totals for the third quarter. Buttigieg, who raised the most money between April and June, brought in $19.1 million this time.
The Sanders campaign has made small “grassroots” donations a hallmark of its strategy as the Vermont senator has shunned private fundraising events and, for the most part, big-money donations.
Just hours after the campaign closed its books on the third quarter, more emails were sent out to Sanders’ supporters, proclaiming that the “bad news” was that the fundraising window had closed but that the “good news” is that they can be among the first to give him money in October.
