Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign reached 2 million individual donors Thursday, a record for any non-incumbent primary candidate, with the average donation being in the single digits.
The campaign saw a surge in donations this week as it pushed to reach the 2 million mark. This week alone, Sanders raised $3 million, with $1.6 million coming since Wednesday. The average donation to the campaign just this week was $20.
“Over 2 million contributions have been made to the only campaign that rejects a corrupt campaign finance system,” Sanders says in a television and Internet advertisement entitled People Power. “You can’t level the playing field with Wall Street banks and billionaires by taking their money.”
No other non-sitting president has ever surpassed 2 million donations at this point in the primary. Barack Obama received 2.2 million donations by the end of 2011 during his re-election campaign, a number Sanders’ campaign believes they “still could surpass.”
Only 261 of Sanders’ donors have given the legal maximum contribution of $2,700, so there is room for them to give more money to the democratic socialist’s campaign.
Although Sanders has more individual donations, Hillary Clinton has to date raised more money than him. Last quarter she brought in $29.4 million to Sanders’ $26.2 million. The two top-polling Democrats both out-raised their Republican rivals that quarter, whose greatest fundraiser Ben Carson raked in $20.8 million.
