Report: Sanders nets record $44M in March

Bernie Sanders reportedly broke his monthly presidential fundraising record in March, earning more than $44 million before the Federal Election Commission’s midnight filing deadline Friday.

“What this campaign is doing is bringing together millions of people contributing an average of just $27 each to take on a billionaire class which is so used to buying elections,” Sanders said in a statement, according to Politico. “Working people standing together are going to propel this campaign to the Democratic nomination and then the White House.”

{mosads}Sanders’s team had reportedly raised $39.6 million as of 6 a.m. Thursday morning, but raised around $5 million that day alone to break its previous monthly benchmark of $43.5 million set in February.

Politico on Friday reported that Sanders’s campaign has now received more than 6.5 million individual contributions from 2 million donors.

“I don’t think I’m too far off to say that this is a headline few in the political establishment would have thought possible even a few months ago: ‘Bernie Sanders outraises [Democratic presidential front-runner] Hillary Clinton for third month straight; aims to win Wisconsin on Tuesday,’” campaign manager Jeff Weaver wrote in a Thursday afternoon email to supporters.

“If we all pull together today, we could wake up to that headline tomorrow. And based on the response already today, I think it’s very possible.”

Clinton, meanwhile, started March with $30.1 million in the bank.

Sanders leads Clinton by just over 2 percent in Wisconsin before its Democratic presidential primary next Tuesday, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls.

Clinton leads the Vermont lawmaker nationwide, however, by nearly 9 percent in the same index.