As presidential candidates on both sides of the political aisle begin announcing their total fourth-quarter fundraising totals, per Federal Election Commission Rules, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — so far — has reported the largest haul with $34.5 million raised.
The Sanders campaign performed extremely well in December, raising $18 million of the total haul in that month alone, according to The Hill . Sanders also managed to garner 1.8 million donations in the fourth quarter. On the last day of the fundraising deadline, he managed to reel in 40,000 new donors for his campaign, presumably through aggressive, last-minute marketing actions.
Though Sanders did well in fundraising in the third quarter, having brought in $25.3 million, the fourth quarter total set a new record for the 2020 Democratic primary.
With the crucially important Iowa caucuses coming in just over a month, the large fundraising haul will likely be a welcome addition to the fiery, progressive senator’s campaign war chest as he looks to impress Iowa voters and pump up his campaign’s momentum with a solid showing in “The Hawkeye State.”
The New Hampshire primaries are also in February. They are viewed as another crucial state for any candidate to win or at least do well in.
Sanders’ campaign manager explained that Sanders’ grassroots fundraising efforts — in the name of beating President Donald Trump in 2020 — have obviously paid of so far.
“You build a grassroots movement to beat Donald Trump and create a political revolution one $18 donation at a time, and that’s exactly why Bernie is going to win,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said.
Sanders posted a video on his Twitter account announcing that his campaign had “more than five million individual contributions,” while indicating that the number was a record for any current 2020 campaign.
Today, I am very proud to share with you some extraordinary news: our campaign has received more than 5 million individual contributions — that is more contributions than any campaign has received at this point in a presidential election in the history of our country. pic.twitter.com/XsRHaVEEpT
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 1, 2020
News of Sanders’ good fortune came about the same time as former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign team released his total fourth-quarter numbers, which ended up at $22.7 million, according to Business Insider .
Though Biden’s number was significantly less than Sanders’, Biden’s haul was his biggest to date, having trounced his third-quarter fundraising efforts of only about $15 million. Biden’s campaign team attributed the latest success to a 100 percent increase in online fundraising along with a steady uptick in first-time donors.
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg also made headlines after his campaign announced an impressive total of $24.7 million, which corroborated with his recent uptick in the polls, especially in Iowa, where he leads the entire field with 22 percent of support, according to Real Clear Politics .
