Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders on Tuesday revealed that his campaign raised $25.3 million in the third quarter, topping rival Pete Buttigieg’s $19.1 million haul for the period after Buttigieg in the second quarter brought in the most money among the 2020 Democrats.
With the third quarter having ended on Monday, presidential campaigns are starting to reveal their fundraising totals for the period, ahead of an Oct. 15 deadline when figures must be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission.
The Sanders campaign said it received 1.4 million donations in Q3, and the average contribution to the Vermont senator was $18.07. Buttigieg’s team said their average contribution was $32, as 182,000 new people donated in Q3 to bring their total number of donors so far in the race to 580,000.
“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,” said the manager of the Sanders campaign, Faiz Shakir, in a news release on Tuesday.
The Sanders campaign also said his overall total haul for the White House contest now stands at $61.5 million, while Buttigieg’s corresponding figure is $51 million. In the second quarter, Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., got $24.8 million in donations to lead the fundraising for that period, but Sanders had raised the most overall in the 2020 race as of the end of the second quarter.
Buttigieg’s Q3 figures show that “in a crowded field, Pete continues to stand out as having the vision and leadership voters know we need to tackle the urgent problems facing our country,” said his campaign manager, Mike Schmuhl, in a news release. “It also positions us solidly as one of the top three fundraisers in this race. We will have the resources to go the full distance, and to win, the 2020 nominating contests.”
A couple of Democratic contenders — New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former Housing and Urban Development chief Julián Castro — cautioned potential donors in recent days that the end of their campaigns could be nearing. But then on Monday, Booker said that he was staying in the 2020 race after achieving a fundraising goal tied to the end of the third quarter.
“There’s a viable path forward, so I’m staying in this race because I know we can win it,” tweeted Booker, who ranks ninth among the 2020 Democrats in the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls, with 1.5% support.
The campaign manager for Castro, who is eighth in the average of polls with 1.7% support, later played down his warning as “unfortunately hyperbolic writing in a fundraising email.”
The third quarter’s final days were highlighted by a flurry of fundraising around House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Trump’s campaign said it and the Republican National Committee raised $5 million in the 24 hours following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s launch of the inquiry, with supporters contributing to an “Impeachment Defense Task Force.”
Democratic campaigns’ fundraising requests tied to the impeachment effort included one from former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who asked for donations in an email that stressed that he has supported impeachment since 2017. And California Sen. Kamala Harris asked for money to fight back amid “attacks on anyone who supports impeachment.”
To make the November debate, Democratic candidates must have at least 165,000 unique donors, as well as hit 3% support in at least four national or early state polls — or 5% in two early state polls. The total number of the party’s White House hopefuls remains at a still-high level of 19, even after a handful of politicians have dropped out of the race for the 2020 nomination.
