Sen. Bernie Sanders set a record for himself by raising $25 million in January, giving his 2020 presidential campaign a financial lead over almost the entire Democratic field.
The independent Vermont senator experienced his best fundraising month to date, according to a Thursday statement released by his team. Over 1.3 million donations were given to aid Sanders in his bid for the presidency, coming from 648,000 small donors.
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Among those who donated include 219,000 new donors. The average donation was $18.72, with the most common occupation among donors being “teacher.” The Sanders campaign said it plans to use the funds toward boosting its performance in Super Tuesday states.
Since the announcement of his White House bid, Sanders, 78, has amassed approximately $121 million, collecting $96 million in 2019. During the last financial quarter of 2019, Sanders raised $34.5 million, leading the pack of Democrats running for president. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the only Democrat with a campaign treasury that is larger than Sanders, spending over $200 million in five weeks.
By the end of 2019, the only Democratic presidential candidates who came close to Sanders’s fundraising levels were former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, raising $24.5 million, $22.7 million, and $21.2 million respectively in the fourth financial quarter of 2019.
On the Republican side, President Trump has collected an immense campaign war chest, raising a total of $463 million toward the reelection campaign in 2019 alone. By October 2019, Trump’s reelection campaign had raised approximately twice that of President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign at that point in the race.
