Sanders leads Dems in donors, dollars; O’Rourke tops Texas

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has a huge lead over other Democratic presidential candidates in the number of individual donors they have each accumulated so far.

This is the first time since the primary race began in earnest that we can estimate how many individual donors each candidate has attracted — a key indicator of how much they are catching on with voters.

Sanders is relying heavily on small donors to power his campaign, and he entered the 2020 race with a huge network of online donors who supported his 2016 presidential bid.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the other leading progressive in the race, is outpacing the rest of the field across much of the country — a sign that her strategy of relying on grassroots donors, and refraining from holding highdollar fundraisers, is working.

Some candidates are showing regional strength, such as former Vice President Joe Biden, who is doing well in Delaware and northeastern Pennsylvania, as well as in many places across the Southeast. Sen. Kamala Harris of California is formidable in her home state, the nation’s most populous. And Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., has drawn strong support in some parts of the Midwest.

Attracting individual donors has been particularly important in the 2020 race because the Democratic National Committee is using grassroots fundraising as one of the qualification standards for the debates. To qualify for the next round of debates in September, candidates will need to have at least 130,000 unique donors, in addition to meeting a polling requirement.

Our analysis is based in part on fundraising records disclosed Wednesday by ActBlue, an online fundraising platform that processes donations for the Democratic candidates.

Overall, Sanders is leading his rivals in total money raised, but not by a huge margin — even though he has far more donors than any of them.

Most other candidates are drawing in more dollars per donor — an estimated average of roughly $80 for both Biden and Harris, for example. Sanders, on the other hand, has brought in an estimated $46 per donor.

Many Democratic candidates have struggled to develop a broad donor base across the nation, though in some cases they at least have bragging rights in their own backyard. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has the largest number of donors in most of her state, as does Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana in his state.

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, whose fundraising slowed significantly after a strong start, leads the field in donors in most of his state.