Buttigieg, 37, is the first presidential contender to disclose an estimate of his fundraising total for the quarter. The haul is expected to place him, financially, in the upper half of a sprawling 2020 primary field that features a half-dozen senators.
“This is a big number for us,” Buttigieg wrote to supporters in an email Monday. “We are not part of the national political machine. We started with just about 20,000 people on our email list, and not many people even knew who I was.”
Buttigieg’s announcement kicks off a highly anticipated moment in the 2020 campaign’s opening phase, when the Democratic hopefuls will reveal their fundraising totals for the first three months of the year. Those results offer early evidence of who is generating excitement among the party’s grassroots, an especially important factor this year given the intense focus on raising money from small donors.
Already, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, have announced sizable fundraising hauls from the first 24 hours of their campaigns. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has lagged in early fundraising; she is trying to distinguish herself from the Democratic field by forgoing high-dollar fundraisers.
Presidential candidates must report their first-quarter fundraising to the Federal Election Commission by April 15. It is up to the individual campaigns to decide when — or whether — to announce their totals before then. Buttigieg’s quick announcement Monday, immediately after the close of the first quarter, allowed him to command the spotlight, at least for a few hours, as he seeks to establish his candidacy as more than a long-shot bid.
“Showing good numbers early is more impressive for a long-shot candidate who doesn’t have a big national identification,” said Michael J. Malbin, director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.
There are signs beyond fundraising that Buttigieg is drawing interest, or at least curiosity, from voters. Searches for his name on Google have shot up in recent weeks: In a ranking of Democrats running for president or considering it, Buttigieg has risen from the bottom of the pack to No. 2, trailing only former Vice President Joe Biden.
For most of this year, for example, O’Rourke has drawn more searches than Buttigieg, but Buttigieg recently surpassed him, according to the Google data.
Buttigieg, who is technically still only exploring a campaign, said last month that he had surpassed the 65,000 donors needed to garner a spot on the Democratic National Committee’s primary debate stage, even as some better-known rivals have suggested they do not yet have that many.
Buttigieg’s fundraising jumped after he appeared in a CNN town hall-style event earlier in March and impressed Democratic activists and donors, as he fielded questions in rolled-up white shirt sleeves and a blue tie. His campaign announced that he raised $600,000 in the 24 hours after his appearance.
Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the campaign, described the televised forum as a turning point. Interest in Buttigieg had been rising before then, she said, but the CNN event “really brought everything to the next level.”
An openly gay veteran and former Rhodes scholar, Buttigieg has made numerous appearances on national television in recent weeks seeking to lift his political profile. Last month he told supporters via email that he was setting a $500,000 fundraising goal by the end of the month. He hit the figure within 24 hours, his campaign said. He set another $500,000 goal. Again, he reached it in about 24 hours.
Buttigieg’s fundraising is particularly noteworthy because he began his campaign with only a modest email list from which he could solicit donations — a stark contrast with rivals like Sanders and O’Rourke, who built huge followings in their prior campaigns for president and Senate.
In addition, Buttigieg has spent relatively little money on advertising on Facebook, which many candidates use to expand their email lists.
“There’s no sorcery involved in this,” Smith said of Buttigieg’s fundraising. “It was because he really struck a chord.”
Other candidates are still expected to post larger sums than Buttigieg for the quarter. Sanders raised $10 million in his first week as a presidential candidate, a total that included $5.9 million from the first 24 hours, his campaign said.
O’Rourke’s campaign said it had raised $6.1 million in his first 24 hours as a candidate. On Sunday, it reached its goal of raising $1 million during the final weekend of the quarter, the campaign said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.