'A President Who Doesn't Need to Beg the Powerful for Money': Sanders Campaign Raises Record $46 Million in February

Again bolstering the argument that its grassroots and movement-building campaign is unique in the 2020 primary field, the campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Sunday morning that it raised a record-setting $46 million in the month a February--by far the most of any Democrat so far.

"This is a campaign FOR the working people of this country powered BY the working people of this country. While other campaigns have their super PACs and their billionaire donors, or are billionaires themselves, we have something they do not have--and that is people. Lots and lots of people."
--Sen. Bernie Sanders"The senator's multigenerational, multiracial working class coalition keeps fueling his campaign for transformational change a few bucks at a time," said Faiz Shakir, Sanders' campaign manager, in a statement. "We're especially proud that of the more than 2 million donations we received this month, over 1.4 million were from voters in states that vote on Super Tuesday."

According to the campaign, it was able to raise $4.5 million on the Saturday alone, even as it suffered its first primary defeat in South Carolina to Joe Biden. "You can't win them all," Sanders said at a rally Saturday night after the results came in.

In an email to supporters on Sunday, Sanders said: "This is a campaign FOR the working people of this country powered BY the working people of this country. While other campaigns have their super PACs and their billionaire donors, or are billionaires themselves, we have something they do not have--and that is people. Lots and lots of people."

As The Hillreports:

The haul, which came during a month in which Sanders cemented himself as the front-runner to win the Democratic nomination, represents the best fundraising month of Sanders' campaign. The previous high came in January, when the campaign reeled in $25 million from more than 648,000 people. In total, Sanders has raised more than $167 million, far outpacing the other Democratic candidates.

Of the total 2.2 million individual donations that came in during the month--including more than 350,000 first-time donors--over half of those came from voters living in Super Tuesday states and the overall average contribution was $21. Campaign strategist Tim Tagaris tweeted:

Revealing the working-class nature of its donor base, the campaign noted that "teacher" was once again the most common occupation of Sanders' February donors and that the top five most common employers of those giving to the campaign were Walmart, the US Postal Service, Target, Amazon, and Starbucks.

Those were facts that members of the campaign, including senior policy advisor Heather Gautney, celebrated. Gautney tweeted: "One lesson from this haul: The 2020 race cannot be won without teachers!"

On the size of the haul--which gives the Sanders campaign the ability to make new outlays in Super Tuesday states and beyond--Tagaris joked, "Just imagine if there were 31 days in February."

The campaign announced new television ad buys in Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri and Washington--all of which hold contests on March 10th, and Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio, which hold contests on March 17th. The campaign is currently on the air in 12 out of the 14 states voting on March 3rd.