With 27 days to go until the Iowa caucuses, the leading 2020 Democratic candidates have begun releasing their fundraising totals for the final quarter of last year. Catch up on the biggest horse race developments in this week’s 2020 recap.
Fmr. Vice President Joe Biden
$22.7 Million: The amount Biden’s campaign announced he raised in the 4th quarter of 2019. The total exceeded the $15.7 million he raised during the third quarter and was his largest quarterly haul so far.
Congressional Endorsements: In the last week, Biden received several endorsements from members of Congress that are running for reelection in swing states. Last Thursday, Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) became the first member of the Iowa congressional delegation to take sides in the primary, and on Monday Biden received the backing from three more swing-district Democrats: Reps. Chrissy Houlahan and Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania and Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia.
Sen. Bernie Sanders
$34.5 Million: The amount Sanders’ campaign announced he raised in the 4th quarter. The campaign said the haul came from more than 1.8 million donations, including from 40,000 new donors on the final day of the year alone. Sanders’ 2020 bid has now raised more than $96 million built on 5 million-plus individual donations worth an average of about $18.
Missing Medical Records: At 78 years old, if Bernie Sanders is elected president he will be the oldest person to hold the office. After suffering a heart attack in October of last year, Sanders assured voters that he was in good health and that he would release his health records to the public. Several month later, and we’re still waiting for the records – a fact that The Washington Post has taken note of. In an editorial published over the weekend, the paper urged Sanders to “be totally forthcoming about his health” as we move into the election season.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren
$21.2 Million: The amount Warren’s campaign announced that she raised in the last quarter of 2019, which was lower than the $24.6 million she raised from July to September. Days before the end the year, Warren’s campaign took the unusual step of going public with its financial performance, announcing that it had raised just over $17 million and conceding that “it will be nearly impossible to match last quarter at this point.” According to her campaign, the announcement helped spur her best end-of-quarter run of donations in all of 2019 — more than $4 million in five days — and her best fund-raising day of the campaign, when she brought in $1.5 million on Dec. 31. Overall, Warren’s money came from nearly 900,000 contributions in the quarter, with an average donation of about $23.
Abandoning Medicare For All? Over the last several months, Warren has appeared to be retreating from her stance on Medicare for All. What was once a central campaign promise has been all but eliminated from her stump speech – a development which Warren’s supporters and rivals have noticed. A piece from The New York Times last week notes, “But Ms. Warren herself is barely speaking of the proposal. After months of attacks from other candidates, and questions and some blowback from both liberals and moderates, the most ambitious and expensive of Ms. Warren’s many plans — and the one most likely to transform the lives of voters — is just a passing mention in her standard stump speech, rarely explored in depth unless a questioner brings it up.”
Castro Endorsement: Last week, former housing secretary and San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro suspended his presidential campaign after it failed to catch fire among Democratic voters. On Monday, Castro announced that he was endorsing Warren’s campaign, saying she is the “one candidate I see who’s unafraid to fight like hell to make sure America’s promise will be there for everyone.”
Mayor Pete Buttigieg
$24.7 Million: The amount Buttigieg’s campaign announced he raised in the 4th quarter. His campaign said it has now received more than two million donations from more than 733,000 people since he entered the race. The campaign also said 326,000 people donated to Buttigieg in the fourth quarter with an average contribution of $34.