Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) brought in a whopping $34.5 million in the fourth fundraising quarter of 2019 besting South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg and putting him at or near the front of the pack of 2020 Democratic presidential contenders.
CNBC reports that Sanders raised $18 million in December alone — his single best fundraising month since launching his presidential campaign back in early 2019 and solidifying Sanders as the top choice among progressives, a battle he’s been waging against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) since the end of the summer.
Sanders crowed about his Q4 take on social media. His total, he said, proves that “you don’t need to beg the wealthy and powerful for campaign contributions in order to win elections.”
His campaign also noted that the average donation to Sanders’ campaign was $18.
I'm incredibly proud to announce we raised $34.5 million from 1.8 million contributions in the fourth quarter.
Our average contribution: just $18.
Together, we're proving you don't need to beg the wealthy and the powerful for campaign contributions in order to win elections.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 2, 2020
Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg is the only other frontrunner to release his or her fundraising totals from the fourth quarter of 2019. Like Sanders, he had his best fundraising quarter ever, hauling in around $25 million. Upstart candidate Andrew Yang, a former tech executive who has built a grassroots campaign mostly using online organizing, also had an excellent fourth quarter, hauling in around $16 million — a near unheard-of total for a candidate without national name recognition.
Buttigieg is courting Democrat mega-donors and establishment bigwigs, hosting and appearing at $2,700-per-plate fundraisers across the country. Back in December, he tangled with Warren and Sanders over his embrace of wealthy donors, defending a “wine cave” fundraiser held in his honor in Napa Valley, California, featuring a who’s who of the San Francisco and Bay Area tech crowd.
Warren, unlike Sanders, has been holding back on releasing her fundraising numbers, perhaps because they’re are likely to show a sharp decline from Q3, when she posted a healthy total built during a sudden upswing in her national and early state polling numbers. Her appeal has since slowed significantly and, according to an email sent to Warren supporters last week, she had raised only $17 million by mid-December, putting her behind Buttigieg and a shocking 30% off her Q3 totals.
Former Vice President Joe Biden also has not released his Q4 numbers, but told reporters back in late November that he’d raised around $22 million and was looking at a steady calendar of fundraisers over the holidays. Biden desperately needs a good quarter; expenditure reports from the fall showed Biden’s campaign splashing out desperately needed cash on private flights and five star hotels, and donors were reportedly expressing concerns about Biden behind the scenes.
If nothing else, Sanders Q4 numbers show incredible staying power. Sanders had a heart attack while campaigning in Las Vegas, Nevada, last month and returned to the trail just days later, amid concerns he was too old and too frail to compete for the title of President of the United States. He insisted he was well enough to continue and, late last week, his campaign released a doctor’s letter attesting to his good health.
The problem Democrats must tangle with now, though, is that while their big moneymakers are far left progressives, the polling certainly favors President Donald Trump every time he’s paired against either Sanders or Warren. A New York Times/Siena College poll from late November showed only Joe Biden challenging Trump in the heartland and among the moderate, Rust Belt Democrats that abandoned the Democratic party back in 2016. A more recent poll showed only Biden challenging Trump in the battleground state of Florida. Sanders runs well behind Trump in any and every poll.