We have noted numerous warning signs about Elizabeth Warren’s fundraising efforts in comparison to top tier Democrats.
Warren held back her numbers while others released impressive amounts.
In an email today, Warren’s campaign manager Roger Laue revealed the bad news:
I’m really grateful that you’re a part of our grassroots movement. It means a lot to me, and it means a lot to Elizabeth.So I wanted to give you an update on our fundraising numbers for the first quarter of this campaign. (Spoiler alert: We’re in good shape, and we’re excited to be able to keep up the fight!)
- Our movement is made up of more than 135,000 grassroots donors who’ve made more than 213,000 grassroots donations
- We raised more than $6 million with a $28 overall average donation
- This includes more than $1.4 million raised during the final week of the quarter, crushing our goal of 35,000 new donations and landing at over 50,000 new donations
- Adding this to what we already had in the bank, we’re entering the second quarter with $11 million cash on hand
Grassroots donations are the only reason Elizabeth can keep setting the tone for this race with substance and determination for big structural change. With your support, from organizing events across the country to the debate stage starting in June, she’ll keep laying out plans to tackle the root causes of why it’s gotten harder and harder for working people to get ahead.But now that we hit our goal for the first quarter, we’ve got to keep up the pace in the second quarter — including this month.***I won’t sugarcoat it: We were outraised by some other candidates in the presidential primary this first quarter.You might have seen some of the big numbers in the headlines, from $7 million to $18 million. Here’s a tip: Take a look at the number of grassroots donors — and donations — that candidates report….
To put in perspective how dismal this was, consider this Politico analysis:
Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised $6 million in the first three months of the year, landing her in the middle of the pack of 2020 candidates and highlighting the difficulty ahead competing for money against more prolific fundraisers like Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke.The Massachusetts Democrat also burned through more than 85 percent of what she raised in the first quarter.While Warren has a comfortable cushion in the bank of funds leftover from her Senate campaign fund, with nearly $11.2 million cash on hand, the early fundraising reveals that Warren is spending like a front-runner but isn’t yet raising money like one.
John McCormack and Sahil Kapur at Bloomberg notes:
The total isn’t much more than the $5.3 million Warren raised in the first quarter of 2017 as she sought re-election to the Senate from Massachusetts.The campaign has $11.2 million in the bank, after transferring $10.4 million from Warren’s Senate account, according to a campaign aide, who asked for anonymity because the figures haven’t been released publicly. That would mean the campaign spent about $5.2 million during the quarter — a level of spending that would suggest she’s burning through money almost as quickly as she’s raising it — including on more than 170 paid staff members, half of them in states holding early caucuses and primaries.Warren’s haul puts her behind several others in the top tier of candidates seeking the 2020 nomination. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the current front-runner in polls among declared candidates, reported raising $18.2 million for his presidential bid in the first three months of the year, while former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke raised $9.4 million in just 18 days following his presidential campaign announcement in March.Senator Kamala Harris of California has said she raised $12 million from more than 218,000 individual contributions, while Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, reported collecting $7 million.
Warren’s campaign has not caught fire, but it’s burning.
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