BOUNCE BACK?

Elizabeth Warren Raises $6M, Cooling Talk of a Stalled Campaign

Her policy-centric focus may have finally broken through with voters, or, concerns over her financial struggles compelled donors to rush to her support. Or both.

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) presidential campaign, much rumored to be in need of defibrillation, has found itself on solid footing in recent weeks after enjoying a wave of grassroots financial support.

The Massachusetts Democrat announced on Wednesday that she had raised more than $6 million in the first quarter of 2019. Of that total, more than $1.4 million came in the last week of the quarter, suggesting that her policy-heavy messaging had broken through with voters or that whispers of her financial struggles had compelled donors to rush to her support—or both.

Either way, donors gave.

Warren has forsworn hosting big-dollar fundraisers or even making phone calls to big-pocketed donors, choosing to rely on a grassroots model. The results have been 135,000 individuals donating to her campaign, making a total of 213,000 donations.

That places Warren well behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)—who has capitalized on the grassroots fundraising paradigm to raise $18.2 million from more than 520,000 donors—but it places her firmly within other top-tier candidates. Warren has roughly the same number of donors as Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and the same number of donations as former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), though the latter started campaigning far later.

With respect to the quantity of giving, Warren also closed the quarter strong. In the final week, her campaign received more than 50,000 new donations.

A prolific fundraiser during her Senate career, Warren had raised a paltry sum when she announced her presidential campaign, sparking suggestions that she wasn’t clicking with voters. But the first-quarter numbers should quiet some of that chatter. At a minimum, Warren appears to have a foundation to sustain a campaign operation for the foreseeable future.

She heads into the second quarter with $11.2 million cash on-hand, thanks to a transfer of $10.4 million from her Senate campaign. All told, Warren spent $5.2 million in the first quarter, below the amount she brought in.

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Sam Stein

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