Happy New Year for Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump in fundraising hauls

Bernie Sanders raised more than $34.5 million in the last quarter of 2019, the largest three-month haul for a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, while Republican President Donald Trump drew $46 million on the heels of his impeachment, their campaigns said on Thursday.

 

The new figures brought Sanders’ total campaign fundraising last year to $96 million, making him the leading fundraiser so far among 14 Democrats vying to face Trump in November's presidential election. States begin choosing candidates next month with the Iowa Caucuses on February 3.

 

Trump, a polarising president popular with a large majority of Republicans but vilified by many Democrats, maintained his formidable fundraising edge over Democrats with a surge of donations following his impeachment last month by the Democratic-led House of Representatives.

 

“Democrats and the media have been in a sham impeachment frenzy and the president’s campaign only got bigger and stronger with our best fundraising quarter this cycle,” his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a statement.

 

Some Democrats have not yet disclosed their fourth-quarter fundraising numbers, but those who did had strong showings. Pete Buttigieg raised $24.7 million in the fourth quarter, a hefty total expected to land him among the top fundraisers in the Democratic field, while businessman Andrew Yang raised $16.5 million, well over the nearly $10 million he took in last quarter.

 

Sanders, a US senator from Vermont who wants to reduce the sway of corporate America and economic inequality, has built his campaign on small donations, largely through online fundraising from an ethnically diverse, mostly young coalition of supporters.