Sanders raises staggering $46 million in February

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised more than $46 million from approximately 2.2 million donations in February, his 2020 presidential campaign announced Sunday. 

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’s 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. 

The Sanders campaign said it raised more than $4.5 million on Saturday alone, making it the best fundraising day since the Vermont senator launched his presidential bid in February 2019. The campaign added that more than 350,000 people donated to his campaign for the first time last month. 

“The senator’s multigenerational, multiracial working class coalition keeps fueling his campaign for transformational change a few bucks at a time,” Sanders’s campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, said 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.”

The February haul came as the Sanders campaign announced that it would make another slate of television ad buys in states with primaries between March 10 and March 17, including Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Washington Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio. 

Sanders finished February as the nominal favorite to win the Democratic nomination after victories in New Hampshire and Nevada and a virtual tie with former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg in Iowa. 

He finished in second in South Carolina on Saturday, though, earning far less support than former Vice President Joe Biden. 

“I want to congratulate Joe Biden on his big win tonight, and now we head to Super Tuesday and Virginia,” Sanders said while speaking to a massive crowd of supporters at Virginia Wesleyan University on Saturday night.