Sanders raises $25 million in third quarter, campaign says

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised more than $25 million over the past three months, his presidential campaign said Tuesday, eclipsing his fundraising total from the second quarter of the year. 

Sanders’s $25.3 million haul was fueled by some 1.4 million donations and bolstered by a strong final day of fundraising on Monday, which the campaign said was its second-best day for donations since its launch in February. 

{mosads}The staggering third-quarter total, the highest reported by any Democratic presidential hopeful so far this year, could help give Sanders a boost at a time when he has seen his support in the polls wane. His chief progressive rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has risen in recent surveys.

The latest cash haul brings the Vermont senator’s total fundraising for the year to $61.5 million, the campaign said, which does not include an additional $2.6 million transferred from other campaign accounts. 

“Bernie is proud to be the only candidate running to defeat Donald Trump who is 100 percent funded by grassroots donations – both in the primary and in the general,” Faiz Shakir, Sanders’s campaign manager, said. 

“Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign, and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution.”

The average donation in the third quarter was $18.07, according to Sanders’s team, which added that more than 99.9 percent of his donors had not yet hit the maximum contribution amount of $2,800, meaning they can give again.

Sanders’s $25.3 million third-quarter haul surpassed at least one of his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaign announced early Tuesday that he had raised roughly $19.1 million in the last three months, short of the $24.8 million he raised in the second quarter. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) raised $11.6 million for her presidential bid, while another Democratic hopeful, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), said on Monday that he had raised more than $2 million in the last 10 days of September.

Booker had previously warned that he would exit the presidential race if he did not raise at least $1.7 million by the end of the month. He has not yet disclosed his full third-quarter fundraising haul.

No other candidate has released fundraising totals yet for the third quarter, which spans from July 1 to Sept. 30. Campaigns have until Oct. 15 to file their fundraising and spending reports with the Federal Election Commission, though many candidates are expected to release fundraising totals beforehand. 

Sanders’s latest fundraising total is a marked improvement over his second-quarter fundraising. Between April 1 and June 30, he brought in roughly $18 million, putting him behind three other candidates, Buttigieg, Warren and former Vice President Joe Biden. 

Sanders has seen his standing in national and early state polls slide in recent months as Warren has gained ground on both him and Biden, the contest’s ostensible front-runner. Sanders’s allies have dismissed the downturn, pointing to his fundraising efforts — he has received contributions from over 1 million individual donors — as evidence that he still has momentum in the race.

Like Warren, Sanders has eschewed the kind of high-dollar fundraisers typical in presidential campaigns, and has instead powered his campaign with small-dollar, online donations and what he has dubbed “grassroots fundraisers,” events with relatively low ticket prices and supporters of all means are invited.

Sanders’s fundraising surge came at a time in the campaign season when the pace of donations typically slows down. Donors tend to focus less on the campaign in the summer months, particularly in July and August, because of vacations and the extended congressional recess.

— Updated at 4:22 p.m.