Sanders campaign says it has raised $6 million in its first day

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has raised $6 million since kicking off his 2020 presidential bid on Tuesday, his campaign said on Wednesday.

Sanders, who announced his second bid for president early Tuesday morning, raised more than $5.9 million in the first 24 hours of his campaign. Soon after the 24-hour mark, that number had risen to $6 million, according to his campaign.

{mosads}The record-setting fundraising haul was powered by small-dollar donations, with the average contribution totaling just $27, his campaign said — a number mirroring the average donation size frequently touted by Sanders during his 2016 White House campaign.  

In all, more than 225,000 individuals gave to the campaign in the first 24 hours following his announcement.

Sanders’s latest fundraising haul blew his previous record out of the water. After announcing his 2016 presidential bid, the Vermont senator raked in roughly $1.5 million in the first 24 hours of his campaign.

Sanders’s 24-hour fundraising haul signals that he may have an early funding edge over his Democratic challengers.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), another 2020 contender, raised $1.5 million in the 24 hours after announcing her presidential bid last month, matching Sanders’s initial haul from his 2016 campaign.

But other candidates, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), have yet to release fundraising numbers of their own.

A year-end Federal Election Commission (FEC) filing from ActBlue, the Democrats’ online fundraising platform, showed that Warren raised more than $299,000 from online donations on the day she announced that she was forming an exploratory committee.

The eventual Democratic presidential nominee will have to go up against President Trump and his campaign’s massive war chest. Trump’s campaign entered 2019 with more than $19 million in cash on hand, according to his most recent FEC filing.