Democrat Pete Buttigieg said Monday that his presidential exploratory committee raised over $7 million in the first quarter of 2019.
That fundraising haul covers slightly more than two months, from January 23 to the end of March, since the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana announced his longshot campaign for president.
“This is just a preliminary analysis, but our team’s initial report shows we raised over $7 million dollars in Q1 of this year,” Buttigieg wrote on Twitter. “We (you) are out-performing expectations at every turn. I’ll have a more complete analysis later, but until then: a big thank you to all our supporters.”
The number is likely to put Buttigieg in the upper echelon of 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls as they publicize their first-quarter fundraising numbers over the next two weeks. Some of Buttigieg’s rivals have reported large first-day cash hauls but have yet to release first quarter estimates. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke raised $6.1 million in the wake of his campaign launch, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised $5.9 million on his first day as a 2020 presidential candidate. Sen. Kamala Harris of California raised $1.5 million immediately after launching her presidential campaign.
Buttigieg has benefited from a few moments that went viral online and translated into bursts of donations. His performance at a CNN town hall, where he criticized Vice President Mike Pence, increased his visibility, as did a handful of early polls showing him leapfrogging other 2020 Democratic rivals.
Connor Farrell, a veteran Democratic finance consultant and the founder of the consulting firm Left Rising, said the question going forward will be whether Buttigieg can keep up his fundraising and use it to build a major campaign. Buttigieg’s campaign has begun looking to hire state directors in Iowa and New Hampshire and expand its campaign offices.
“I think it’s a really significant number,” Farrell said Monday morning. “I just wonder if he’ll be able to keep a comparative pace that allows him to do significant advertising in the early states.”
Farrell added that it’s likely other Democratic candidates who have already proven to be prodigious fundraisers will probably post big numbers as well.
“It’s really good for a small town mayor but I think Bernie and Beto are going to post 25 to 30 million dollars and the pace and the gulf there is going to widen,” Farrell said, adding: “I think it probably takes him out of the B team and puts him at the bottom rung of the A team.”
Buttigieg’s exploratory committee is using the fundraising number to build even more hype around his campaign. In an email to supporters previewing the announcement, Buttigieg’s team said, “It’s going to be a good day.”
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine
Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/01/pete-buttigieg-2020-fundraising-1246204
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The Article Was Written/Published By: dstrauss@politico.com (Daniel Strauss)
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