Bernie Sanders nets $26 million: a new kind of fundraising?
The $26 million Bernie Sanders raised this quarter came from 650,000 donors who each contributed an average of $30, the Democratic presidential candidate said on Saturday.
Yes, that math doesn't quite work, adding up only to聽$19.5 million,聽but the Vermont senator鈥檚 outsize donor pool still stands in stark contrast to the tight concentration of the super-wealthy who are responsible for propping up much of this election, 鈥渟ometimes bringing in tens of millions of dollars from in a matter of days,鈥� wrote The New York Times.
This August, the Times reported 鈥� are responsible for almost half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign, a concentration of political donors that is unprecedented in the modern era.鈥�
Senator Sanders鈥檚 $26 million, reported this week, shows 鈥渙ur campaign is a different type of campaign,鈥� he told voters in Springfield, Mass. this weekend. 鈥淚t is a grassroots campaign, designed not only to elect someone to be president of the United States, but to build a political movement.鈥�
Sanders鈥檚 numbers also impressed because they came in only $2 million below Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton鈥檚 haul this quarter, drawing 鈥渁ttention to the growing relevance of Senator Sanders鈥檚 insurgent campaign,鈥� reported 海角大神.
How the two Democratic candidates have been spending all this money is suggested to be dramatically different as well. In the third quarter, Mrs. Clinton 鈥渆xpanded her campaign鈥檚 ground operations and launched a paid television campaign, spending around she raised,鈥� according to The Washington Post.
鈥淪anders spent only an estimated $11.6 million 鈥� less than one out of every two dollars he raised 鈥� showing how far he has been able to take his insurgent bid with a relatively lean operation.鈥�
"I am enormously proud," Sanders told a crowd of more than 20,000 in Boston on Saturday, according to ABC News. "As some of you may have noticed, we have raised tremendous sums of money, because average $30 apiece.鈥�
"In other words, we are running a people's campaign," he said. "And the millionaires and billionaires may have more money than we do, but we have something they don't have. Look around this room 鈥� this is what we have."
Sanders took a moment to address the several thousand who were unable to make it inside the stadium, but who had stayed to watch the candidate鈥檚 speech on screens.
鈥淵ou guys are the true believers," he said over their cheers. 鈥淭hank you for freezing out here.鈥�
