As Democratic presidential candidates continue to report fourth-quarter fundraising hauls, entrepreneur Andrew Yang and Sen. Amy Klobuchar separated from the pack with strong quarters to wrap up 2019.
In the final three months of the year, Yang notched just over $16.5 million in campaign contributions — up 65% from the $10.5 million he raised in the prior quarter and a massive jump from his campaign’s first-quarter haul of just $1.7 million. Sen. Klobuchar posted an even more impressive 137% jump over last quarter to hit a personal best quarterly haul of $11.4 million.
Other candidates who were able to demonstrate momentum in their final fundraising quarter of the year included former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, posting about a 45% and a 36% improvement over last quarter, respectively. For Biden, his more than $22 million dollar haul was a healthy rebound from a down third quarter, while the $34.5 million brought in by the Sanders campaign marked the single largest fundraising quarter for a Democratic candidate in 2019.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose standing had been falling in more recent national polls, revealed Friday that her fourth-quarter haul came in at just over $21 million, which was rough enough for a 14% decline from her third-quarter total contributions.
Nonetheless, as impressive as the fundraising numbers were for some Democratic challengers, each haul lagged behind the $46 million the Trump reelection campaign announced it raised on the back of impeachment developments in the final quarter of the year. The quarterly total Trump brought in even topped Barrack Obama’s $42 million fourth-quarter fundraising number back from when he was in his final quarter heading into an election year and the nearly $41 million Trump himself brought in last quarter. He now enters 2020 with more than $103 million in cash on hand.
With just a little over a month to go before the Iowa caucus, the fourth quarter represents an important time for candidates looking to boost their positions in a crowded field.
The Yang campaign noted in its statement announcing the entrepreneur’s best-ever quarter that the $16.5 million haul would help “the campaign to devote resources toward TV and digital ads, on-the-ground staff, and campaign infrastructure in the early primary states” ahead of the next Democratic debate planned for Jan. 14. So far Yang and billionaire Tom Steyer were the only candidates from the last debate not yet to qualify for the January debate ahead of the Jan. 10 qualifying deadline.
?This post was updated Friday, Jan. 3 to reflect newly reported fundraising numbers from Warren and Klobuchar.
Zack Guzman is the host of YFi PM as well as a senior writer and on-air reporter covering entrepreneurship, cannabis, startups, and breaking news at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @zGuz.
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