Bernie Sanders Raises $18.2 Million to Lead 2020 Democratic Fundraising

(Bloomberg) -- Senator Bernie Sanders raised $18.2 million for his presidential bid in the first three months of the year, leveraging one of the biggest online donor lists in national politics to solidify his standing as the front-runner among declared 2020 Democratic candidates.

The Vermont senator has $28 million in the bank after carrying over a previous balance and transferring funds from another account, Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, told reporters on a conference call Tuesday. There were 900,000 individual donations in 41 days after Sanders formally entered the race, Shakir said, with an average donation of $20.

The total puts Sanders well ahead of the other Democratic hopefuls who’ve released first-quarter figures so far. Senator Kamala Harris said Monday she raised $12 million from more than 218,000 individual contributions, while Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, reported collecting $7 million from more than 158,000 donors.

Another fundraising powerhouse, Beto O’Rourke, hasn’t announced his tally yet, but outpaced Sanders in donations collected immediately after announcing his campaign last month. The former Texas congressman set a quarterly fundraising record for Senate candidates during his failed 2018 bid to topple Senator Ted Cruz.

Early Fundraising

Sanders reported more than 225,000 donors on his first day of fundraising for his 2020 campaign, when he took in $5.9 million. O’Rourke raised $6.1 million from 128,000 donors during the 24 hours following the launch of his campaign in March.

The reported totals are impressive, but still less than the $25 million Barack Obama raised during the first quarter of 2007. That score immediately added credibility to the campaign of a man who was then the junior senator from Illinois. There were far fewer candidates competing in that nomination contest than the 15 who are running so far this year.

The first-quarter numbers offer early evidence of who is generating excitement among the party’s grassroots donors at a time when Democrats are placing increasing emphasis on collecting cash from sources other than big donors and corporate political action committees.

Reporting Deadline

The candidates must report fundraising and spending to the Federal Election Commission by April 15, but individual campaigns often announce collections shortly after the quarter is over to try to showcase their support.

Some likely candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden, may have delayed their entry into the race until after the end of March so that they could avoid the expectations game associated with the first-quarter fundraising.

Small-dollar donors have become a critical source of funds for campaigns, and not just for the money they give. One of the criteria the Democratic Party set for qualifying for the first two presidential debates, scheduled for June and July, is having at least 65,000 donors, with a minimum of 200 donors in at least 20 states.

Fundraising is often seen as a better early indicator of viability than polling, which often measures name recognition as much as voter preference. Still, it’s not a foolproof method of determining eventual electoral success: President Donald Trump reported just $1.9 million in receipts in his first quarter as a candidate, most of which was his own money.

Jeff Weaver, a senior Sanders adviser, said the campaign will not have to make choices on where to compete, as it did in 2016. Sanders raised $15.2 million in his opening quarter of fundraising in 2016, well behind the $47.5 million that Hillary Clinton, the eventual Democratic nominee, took in over the same period.

"I’m certain that in this race some of our opponents will also have to make similar, difficult choices," he said. "This campaign will have the resources and the volunteer, grassroots strength to compete in every single state in the primary process."

To contact the reporters on this story: John McCormick in Chicago at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net;Bill Allison in Washington at ballison14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, ;Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Wendy Benjaminson

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