Bernie Sanders raised $25.3 million and Pete Buttigieg brought in $19.1 million during the third quarter of 2019, from July through September, their campaigns said Tuesday. The figures show an increase for the Vermont senator and decrease for the South Bend, Indiana, mayor compared to the last quarter.
The two campaigns are the first to announce third-quarter fundraising figures after Monday’s end-of-quarter deadline, covering the past three months that saw Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren emerge as a top rival against former Vice President Joe Biden for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Neither campaign reported its cash-on-hand. They and the more than a dozen Democrats still in the race have until mid-October to officially file campaign finance reports with the Federal Elections Commission.
“This is great news and it positions us to not just go the distance, but win,” Buttigieg campaign manager Mike Schmuhl said in an email to supporters Tuesday. “We’ve come a long way. When we got in, no one knew what to think of a mayor from a mid-sized city in the Midwest running for president.”
In the second quarter of the year from April through June, Buttigieg raised $24.8 million, more than any other candidate. The figure was surprising for a Democratic presidential hopeful who was relatively unknown before launching his bid.
Buttigieg brought in 182,000 new donors during the third quarter, bringing the total number of individual donors to more than 580,000. The average donation during the quarter was $32, slightly lower than the $40 average donation for the whole campaign. He has raised more than $51 million during the entirety of his campaign.
Senior Buttigieg adviser Lis Smith said in August that the second campaign’s second quarter haul was “phase two” of the campaign: “blow everyone out of the water on fundraising.” Now the campaign’s “phase three” is focusing on “organization and our organizational abilities.” The Buttigieg campaign went from zero to 42 field offices in early voting states during the quarter and has almost 400 people on staff, the campaign said Tuesday.
Sanders’ $25.3 million haul is an increase from the $18 million he raised in the second quarter, bringing the total amount raised since his February campaign launch to $61.5 million.
“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,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said in a statement Tuesday.
Sanders’ campaign announced earlier in September that his campaign surpassed 1 million unique donors. The average donation to Sanders during the quarter was $18.07, while it is $19 for the entirety of the campaign. Nearly all of Sanders’ donors, 99.9%, have not reached the Federal Election Commission’s contribution limit.
The Vermont senator also transferred $2.6 million from other campaign accounts to his 2020 committee during the quarter in addition to the $25.3 million raised from individuals.
