The financial haul, among the first that a candidate has announced for the third quarter, will place Sanders in the top of the field for fundraising.
It is also a much-needed boost for his campaign, as it looks to move past a summer slump that coincided with staff shake-ups in New Hampshire and Iowa and a slip in some polls in early-voting states. And it will perhaps help quell the narrative that his campaign is in decline.
Sanders received 1.4 million donations in the third quarter, his campaign said.
His third-quarter dollar total exceeds the $18 million he raised in the second quarter, which was roughly the same amount he collected during the first six weeks of his campaign at the beginning of the year. His campaign did not say how much cash it had on hand.
Sanders announced his total for the quarter just minutes after Mayor Peter Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, said he had raised $19.1 million in the same period.
The fundraising announcement comes as Sanders’ campaign begins a crucial phase of his presidential bid. He and his advisers had tried for months to portray the race as a battle between Sanders and Joe Biden, but the surge of Warren, his chief ideological rival, has scrambled that strategy. The top tier of candidates in the field has narrowed faster than his advisers expected, complicating matters: Rather than competing for the nomination with a half dozen candidates, he is essentially battling just two right now — Biden and Warren.
Seeking to alter the course of the race, Sanders has shifted his message in recent weeks to focus more on electability. During a recent tour of eastern Iowa and campaign stops elsewhere, he has tried to make the case to voters that of all the Democratic hopefuls, he is the candidate most likely to prevail against President Donald Trump. He has also introduced a series of audacious policy proposals, including establishing a national rent control standard, eliminating existing medical debt and instituting a wealth tax that goes further than Warren’s plan.
Yet perhaps more than ever, Sanders is betting on the grassroots appeal that propelled his 2016 campaign, a factor that his campaign says polls often fail to capture.
Rather than relying on high-dollar fundraisers — events he categorically rejects — he instead hopes to energize enthusiastic supporters who can donate to him again and again. In a show of force last month, his campaign said it had logged contributions from more than 1 million individual donors. His campaign said the average donation for the quarter was $18.07.
His strategy means he does not have to worry about donors maxing out; his campaign said more than 99.9% can give again. But it also poses challenges: Though he has a loyal army of supporters and volunteers, many of them do not donate large amounts of money, meaning he must appeal to a huge pool of donors in order to keep pace with rivals like Buttigieg, who is willing to collect large sums of money on the traditional big donor fundraising circuit.
This article originally appeared in
.