Bernie Sanders Raises Nearly $6 Million in Donations During First 24 Hours of His Campaign

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Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) hit the ground running in his 2020 presidential campaign, collecting $5,925,771 in the first 24 of his bid’s hours thanks to 223,047 individual donors, according to a statement released by the campaign. As tweeted by The Daily Beast’s Gideon Resnick, the Sanders camp received $600,000 in donations that will recur monthly. His previous single-day fundraising record in 2016 was $6.5 million in donations following his New Hampshire primary win, the Washington Post reports. Tuesday’s total shatters the previous opening day record.

Over 12 hours later:
—223,047 individual donors through the first 24 hours
—$5,925,771 total collected
—$600,000 in donations that will recur every month pic.twitter.com/oP7wr0yUzf
— Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) February 20, 2019

Earlier on Tuesday afternoon, CNN’s Ryan Nobles reported that Sanders officially announced his run, that the left-leaning candidate raised $3.3 million from 120,000 individual donors.

JUST IN: The @BernieSanders campaign reports that they have brought in more than $3.3 Million from 120k individual donors since his launch this morning.
— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) February 19, 2019
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That number blows Kamala Harris, one of the most active Democratic fundraisers so far, out of the water. The California Senator racked up $1.5 million from over 38,000 individual donors in her first 24 hours, The Daily Beast reports.

The swift grassroots success of Sanders’ financial campaign heralds a new era for the Vermont senator, whose ideas won over a sizable sector of the public in 2016, but did not have the immediate name recognition to garner him the Democratic nomination. Paste’s Shane Ryan may just be right—Sanders could wind up on the Democratic ticket and make it look easy.