Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are out with big numbers for the third quarter.
Some of that is a result of Wednesday's fundraising mad dash as the quarter ended. For presidential campaigns, the quarterly reporting deadlines are all about putting up a big number to prove your campaign is viable and has grassroots support.
Bernie Sanders insurgent campaign raised 26 million dollars in the third quarter — 2 million of it in the last day. Almost all of that was in small dollar donations. Sanders' campaign says he has gotten more than 1.3 million donations (from 650,000 donors) since Sanders started running.
Hillary Clinton's campaign gave its own preview of third quarter fundraising, saying she raised 28 million dollars. A campaign aide said most of her donations were for $100 dollars or less. But throughout the campaign Clinton has also held numerous big dollar fundraisers, often several in a single day.
Before this deadline, Clinton had a wide gap over other campaigns — she had more than twice as much as any other campaign and more than three times as much as Sanders by the end of the second quarter. She had raised $47.5 million by June 30 compared with Sanders' $15.2 million.
Additionally, more than three-quarters of Sanders' donations had come from donations of $200 or less, while the majority of Clinton's donations had come from mid-sized donations — between $200 and the $2700 limit for donating to a campaign. (We broke down all the candidates' donations here).
Martin O'Malley's campaign did not release any fundraising numbers for the third quarter.
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