Sanders on fundraising: ‘We are in this to the finish’

by Bradford Richardson - 10/03/15 10:49 AM ET

Senator Bernie Sanders: "We are in this to the finish"

Posted by All In with Chris Hayes on Friday, October 2, 2015

On the heels of revealing big fundraising numbers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) says his campaign is “in this to the finish.”

“Oh, well there’s no question about it. And I think what the results today show is that we are going to have more than enough money to run very strong campaigns in New Hampshire, in Iowa, in Nevada and South Carolina, the first elections that are coming up,” Sanders said on MSNBC’s “All in with Chris Hayes” on Friday.

{mosads}“But we’re going to be very strong on Super Tuesday as well. So we now have enough money to run a winning campaign.”

Sanders’ campaign came within $2 million of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton’s haul in third-quarter fundraising.

The self-proclaimed Democratic socialist said despite Clinton’s narrow lead in fundraising, he would rather be in his position than hers.

“I’ll let people read what secretary Clinton’s fundraising is about and where she gets her money. I think there is a very different pattern. I would rather be where I am, that’s the way I like to do politics, involve whole lots of people,” Sanders said.

“We are not dependent on any big campaign donors. No one’s going to tell me what to do. I don’t have special interests dictating to me what my position should be on Wall Street or anything else,” he added.

Clinton vastly outraised Sanders during the second quarter as their respective campaigns began, drawing in $47 million compared to his $15 million.

But Sanders narrowed the gap considerably in the second quarter, raking in $26 million compared with Clinton’s $28 million.

Sanders said based on these fundraising results, he is “very confident” his campaign can pull off “one of the major political upsets in American history.”

The Vermont senator said he is proud that his campaign’s average contribution is below $30.

“Well I am very proud of that in the era of Citizens United and in the era of super-PACS, where millionaires and billionaires are making huge contributions to campaigns, we don’t have a super PAC,” Sanders said.

“And the overwhelming, overwhelming, overwhelming majority of our contributions are coming from middle-class and working class-people. I think our average contribution may be less than 30 bucks.”

The Clinton campaign also reported that it had a burn rate of 89 percent in its second quarter, whereas the Sanders campaign said it spent approximately 50 percent of its cash.

Campaigns have until the middle of the month to finalize their campaign contribution disclosures.

Tags Bernie Sanders Chris Hayes