Bernie Sanders closes the fundraising gap

The third quarter just closed as of September 30 and it appears that Bernie Sanders took in an amazing $26 million compared to Hillary Clinton’s $28 million. The number is more impressive when you consider that Hillary did 58 fundraisers over the last three months compared to Sanders clocking in at just 7 fundraising events total since he entered the campaign in April.

Report from USAToday:

WASHINGTON — Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders harnessed online donations from legions of contributors during the last three months to challenge one of Hillary Clinton’s core strengths: her fundraising dominance over the Democratic presidential field.

The Vermont senator’s reliance on small donors has only left him room to grow in the months ahead.

The Democratic front-runner narrowly beat Sanders in the chase for political money, raising $28 million to Sanders’ $26 million during the July-to-September fundraising quarter.

But Clinton worked aggressively for those dollars, holding 58 fundraising events in the last three months to help raise much of that sum. This week alone, Clinton crisscrossed the country to headline six donor events in California, North Carolina and New York, where attendees contributed between $1,000 and $2,700 apiece.

Sanders has hosted just seven fundraising events since he entered the race at the end of April, his aides say.

Instead, he has relied on smaller donations, collecting more than 1.3 million in online contributions, exceeding a pace set by President Obama in his 2008 bid. In all, he’s drawn contributions from 650,000 individuals, most of whom have not hit the $2,700 donation cap, his campaign said. Clinton’s campaign has not released details on her total number of donors.

The Sanders money is coming from individuals much in the way the Obama campaign money originated as well. Hillary, on other hand, has focused on larger donors and larger fundraising events to fill her campaign coffers. The difference is that Sanders clearly has a grassroots appeal within the Democratic Party and he’s tapped into the same vein as Obama did in 2008 in terms of fundraising.

However, raising the money doesn’t always translate into votes as we witness cycle after cycle. Sanders will be able to compete in places like Iowa and New Hampshire because he’s got some serious cash on hand to fight the television ad wars with the Clinton campaign. That is where the money will really come into play as it prevents one campaign from monopolizing the airwaves entirely.