Warren received more than 213,000 contributions from more than 135,000 donors, with an average donation of $28, her campaign said. She also had a strong finish to the quarter. The campaign raised more than $1.4 million during the last week of the quarter from more than 50,000 new donations, far exceeding its goal of 35,000 new donations during that period.
“Grassroots donations are the only reason Elizabeth can keep setting the tone for this race with substance and determination for big structural change,” read an email from Warren’s campaign manager, Roger Lau, who detailed the numbers in an afternoon message to supporters. “With your support, from organizing events across the country to the debate stage starting in June, she’ll keep laying out plans to tackle the root causes of why it’s gotten harder and harder for working people to get ahead.”
The numbers offer the most detailed window into the financial outlook of Warren’s campaign, which has, to this point, released little information about its ability to raise funds. Warren has raised eyebrows — and won supporters — for her decision to swear off high-dollar fundraising events and rest her campaign’s hopes on small-dollar donations. She and campaign advisers have also made clear that they did not expect to match the fundraising prowess of former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the two other major candidates who have eschewed high-dollar fundraisers.
The disclosure Wednesday confirms that fact, as Warren’s first-quarter totals trail those of O’Rourke and Sanders — even though Warren entered the presidential race more than a month before both candidates. However, the numbers also offer reason for optimism, considering Warren roughly matched another rival, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, in small-dollar donations, and raised more in the final week of the quarter than Harris did through her digital program in the final week.
Supporters of Warren feared that she was being crowded out by Sanders on the party’s left flank, but the campaign’s surge in the final week has allayed some of the concern. During that time, Warren’s campaign team made several dramatic pitches to its donor base, sending emails that addressed the harshest criticisms of the campaign, such as one titled “Can She Really Win?” in which they laid out the campaign’s overarching strategy.
The emails, which track with private conversations among Warren’s senior advisers, state that the senator believes three things will lead her to break out of the Democratic pack: an ability to do more political events rather than a few private fundraisers, her well-praised policy rollouts, and the campaign team’s focus on digital organizing.
“The relative numbers don’t matter to me,” said John Walsh, a former chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party. “Who has the most money? No, that doesn’t matter. It’s, ‘Do you have enough money to run the campaign you said you’re going to run?’”
But challenges remain. On Dec. 31, the day Warren announced her exploratory committee for president, she raised about $300,000 through the online donation-processing platform ActBlue, according to Federal Election Commission records. By contrast, O’Rourke raised $6.1 million in his first 24 hours in the race, and Sanders raised $5.9 million in his first day, according to their campaigns.
Candidates must report their fundraising for the first quarter to the Federal Election Commission by April 15, but campaigns can announce numbers before that deadline.
Based on information disclosed by campaigns this month, Sanders leads the Democratic pack with $18.2 million raised in the first quarter, followed by Harris with $12 million and O’Rourke with $9.4 million.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, raised more than $7 million, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota raised more than $5.2 million and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey raised more than $5 million, their campaigns have said. (Klobuchar solicited donations for the general election as well as the primary, so a portion of her total cannot currently be used.)
A New York Times article detailing some of Warren’s early fundraising struggles, which posted online on the last day of the quarter, helped create an outpouring for Warren, handing her one of her best fundraising days of the quarter, according to a Democrat familiar with her fundraising.
Warren, who won her Senate re-election bid by a wide margin in November, has a big financial cushion because of the money she accumulated as a Senate candidate. Presidential candidates can make use of money they previously raised in federal campaigns, and Warren transferred $10.4 million from her Senate account to her presidential campaign, her team said. She ended the first quarter with $11 million in cash on hand, her campaign said.
On Wednesday, Warren also disclosed her 2018 tax returns, showing that she earned about $325,000 from her books last year on top of her Senate salary.
Warren had previously posted 10 years of her tax returns online, and she has called on her fellow presidential candidates to do the same thing. She has proposed a wide-ranging anti-corruption bill that would require the disclosure of tax returns for the president, vice president and major party nominees for those offices.
President Donald Trump has refused to share his tax returns, defying tradition going back decades. The issue of his tax returns is back in the spotlight now that House Democrats have requested them.
“I’ve put out 11 years of my tax returns because no one should ever have to guess who their elected officials are working for,” Warren said in a statement Wednesday. “Doing this should be law.”
Overall, Warren and her husband, Bruce H. Mann, a professor at Harvard Law School, had an adjusted gross income of $846,394. Their federal taxes came to $230,965, for an effective federal tax rate of 27.3 percent.
Warren’s household income would easily place her in the top 1 percent of U.S. households, according to census data.
A rough estimate of Warren’s income from writing books had already come into public view from the financial disclosure filing that she made after entering the presidential race. That filing showed that she received a $300,000 advance for her latest book, “This Fight Is Our Fight.”
In addition to $324,687 in writing income reported on her tax return, Warren earned $176,280 from her Senate position. Mann earned $402,897 from Harvard. Warren and Mann reported donating $50,128 to charity.
Warren is among several Democratic presidential candidates who have disclosed years of tax returns. Klobuchar, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington have also done so.
Sanders said Tuesday that he would make public 10 years of tax returns by Tax Day on Monday. He, too, has supplemented his Senate salary with income from writing books.
“I wrote a best-selling book,” he said. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.