Bernie Sanders raised $25 million in January
Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign announced Thursday it raised a massive $25 million in January alone, a monthly record for any Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 race for the White House.
According to the campaign, the January cash haul came from 1.3 million donations by more than 648,000 people. More than 219,000 of those contributors were new donors, signaling the Sanders campaigns' continued small-dollar fundraising strength and ability to grow support in the critical first months of 2020.
Sanders' $25 million is more than any other candidate raised across the entire 2019 fourth quarter fundraising period. Pete Buttigieg came the closest to matching it, but over the three month span, when he raised $24.7 million from October through December. Buttigieg, unlike Sanders, also participated in large dollar fundraisers to rake in cash.
The fundraising haul adds to the more than $18 million cash on hand Sanders had at the end of December, which was the most funds that any Democratic presidential candidate not self-funding a campaign had heading into 2020.
On Thursday, Sanders' campaign announced it will ramp up staffing in Super Tuesday states and make a $5.5 million television and digital ad buy in 8 additional states including Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, along with expanding its buys in California and Texas where the campaign is already running ads.
The only other candidate currently running ads in all 10 of those states is billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who has invested more than $300 million of his own money in ad buys for his presidential bid.
According to Kantar Campaign Media Analysis Group, Sanders is also already spending the most of any candidate apart from Tom Steyer on ads in New Hampshire where the next nominating contest is being held February 11. He's invested nearly $6 million on ads in the state. Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang have each spent nearly $4 million, Warren has spent $1.6 million, and Amy Klobuchar has spent $1.4 million. Joe Biden and the super PAC supporting him, Unite the Country, combined have spent less than $1 million there so far.
At the same time, Sanders is nearly neck-and-neck with Buttigieg in terms of state delegate equivalents in Iowa with 97% of results from their Monday caucuses being reported as of Thursday morning. Separately, a series of recent polls out of New Hampshire all put Sanders in the lead with less than a week to go before voters there head to the polls.
On Tuesday, Warren shifted more than $133,000 out of Nevada and $222,000 out of South Carolina while buying more airtime in New Hampshire ahead of its primary. Yesterday, her campaign pulled another $150,000 out of each Nevada and South Carolina, which each hold their primary contests later this month.
"I just always want to be careful about how we spend our money," Warren said when asked about the transfer of funds from South Carolina and Nevada.
Biden this week also shifted nearly $175,000 in ad buy money out of South Carolina while investing more in Nevada.
Since the campaign's February 2019 launch, Sanders has raised more than $121 million from over 6.4 million individual donations. He raised more last year than any candidate besides President Donald Trump. The Sanders campaign's average contribution of $18 and more than 99.9% of donors have not hit their donation limits and can give again.
