Sanders’ third quarter haul is the latest demonstration of the rising power of small donors to reshape presidential politics. His campaign moved swiftly on Tuesday to assert his financial might, reserving his first television ads of the campaign — a two-week, $1.3 million buy in Iowa.
Biden and Warren have yet to share their much-anticipated totals. But Warren’s figure is prompting much speculation; she is widely expected to improve upon the $19 million that she raised last quarter as she has surged in the polls to become Biden’s leading rival.
The expectations game is perhaps most fraught for Biden, whose efforts to fashion himself as the clear front-runner means that any slippage from the top of the ranks represents a risk.
Both Warren and Sanders have boycotted the big-money circuit, raising the possibility of a watershed moment: The two top fundraisers in the Democratic Party might end up being candidates who have turned their backs on the established class of political bundlers and financiers who have held sway for decades.
The third quarter is known as perhaps the toughest to raise money in, as big donors are often out of town vacationing in July and August while small contributors spend less time online in the summer. But the money totals are critical not only to set budgets, hire staff and run ads but also because they mark the last time in 2019 that campaigns must open their books, hardening public perception of viability — or lack of it — during a crucial three-month period.
The quarter ended on Monday and campaigns have until Oct. 15 to share their financial figures. Those without enough money can be winnowed quickly from the field; a half-dozen Democratic candidates have already called it quits this year.
“It dictates the narrative in the lead-up to the elections,” said Rufus Gifford, who served as finance director for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign and has donated to multiple 2020 candidates. “The big game that’s going on inside the campaigns is how to manage expectations.”
Later on Tuesday, President Donald Trump demonstrated fundraising might that far surpassed any of the Democrats. Republican Party officials said that his reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee had raised $125 million over the last three months, a presidential fundraising record.
Earlier, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, announced that he had raised $19.1 million in the third quarter, a dip from the field-leading $24.9 million he posted in the previous quarter, but more than enough to fully fund his once-upstart campaign into the fall and winter. Buttigieg has developed a grassroots following, pairing his 580,000 donors with an aggressive calendar of traditional fundraising events.
Sen. Kamala Harris announced an $11.6 million haul — nearly matching her totals in the first two quarters. She was the only campaign to announce her cash on hand: nearly $10 million, down from $13.3 million at the end of June, meaning she spent more than she raised in the last three months.
Biden raised $22 million in the last quarter, second to Buttigieg. But there are signs his fundraising operation has slowed, particularly online, where Biden has slashed his advertising budget.
While Warren and Sanders did not have to fill their calendars with fundraisers, Biden raced across the country in the last three months, from Florida to California, Aspen to the Hamptons, holding more than 40 donor events. His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, headlined another dozen.
This weekend, top Biden donors and bundlers have been invited to a retreat in Philadelphia to discuss the campaign’s next phase.
Biden’s campaign has said he scored his best week of fundraising since the second week of the campaign as Democrats initiated an impeachment inquiry of Trump over a whistleblower complaint claiming that Trump prodded the president of Ukraine to investigate the business dealings there of Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Still, some Biden supporters are nervous about how the impeachment process, and any added scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s business affairs, will play out. Some have even discussed creating a super PAC, which the campaign quickly disavowed. Others see in Warren’s rise as a top rival, with Sanders in third, an opportunity for Biden to truly consolidate a donor class that has remained fractured.
Biden’s ability to attract small donors will be closely scrutinized. In the last 90 days, his campaign ranked 10th among the Democratic presidential candidates for advertising dollars on Facebook, where campaigns often prospect for new contributors. He spent less than one-quarter of what Buttigieg had spent on the platform in that time, and well less than half of what Warren and Sanders had spent, according to Facebook data.
Biden told donors at a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles last week that he had nearly 670,000 donations overall with an average donation of $46, which would translate to only about $10.8 million this quarter. A Biden campaign official said the former vice president had not presented the “full picture” but declined to elaborate.
A Biden campaign official said Tuesday that the former vice president had “unequivocally’’ raised enough money to be competitive in the primary race, and that details would be released soon.
Steve Westly, a bundler for Biden in California, said that skeptics and critics place too much importance on any one measurement of Biden’s candidacy.
“Every time someone is a front-runner, they say, ‘Oh my gosh, they’re not ahead in every straw poll, ahead in every state and every fundraising report,’” Westly said. “The reality is you want to be in first place, which is where Joe Biden is.”
Harold Schaitberger, a close Biden ally and president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which has endorsed Biden, compared the race to a schoolyard game of “king of the hill.”
“If you’re the king and you’re on the hill, everybody else — in this case certainly within the Democratic candidates and the Republican Party — are doing everything they can to take you off the hill,” he said. “That’s the point of it.”
He said he had “seen no indication of any concern” about resources.
For Sanders, his $25.3 million quarter — which included his second biggest day for fundraising of the campaign, on Monday — was a welcome reprieve from weeks of questions about his pathway as he has stagnated in the polls and has been passed on the left by Warren. (In one Iowa poll, more of those who caucused with Sanders in 2016 said they planned to support Warren in 2020 than him.)
“Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign,” said Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, “and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution.”
For Buttigieg, the third quarter was a period of rapid expansion: He went from zero field offices in the early states to 42, and his staff jumped to 400 people. Buttigieg, who began the year as a little-known mayor, has raised more than $51 million for the year, a remarkable sum for a newcomer to the national scene. But he has struggled to translate that cash into support beyond single digits in the polls.
While Harris’ haul was similar to her previous quarters, she entered October on a far different trajectory. She began the quarter riding high from her June debate performance — raising $4 million in the last four days of that month — but had faded by late September, promising to refocus on Iowa amid a staff shake-up.
One other campaign announced its numbers Tuesday: Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey raised more than $6 million, his best quarter yet. Ten days ago, in a gambit to draw attention and donations, Booker’s campaign said he would quit the race if he did not collect at least $1.7 million; he raised more than $2.1 million.
The quarterly fundraising report will be the first for Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas representative, since the shooting in his hometown of El Paso that appeared to give his candidacy fresh purpose.
Andrew Yang, the New York executive running a web-savvy campaign centered on the idea of giving away $1,000 to every American every month, is expected to post by far his best haul of the campaign.
This article originally appeared in
.