Pete Buttigieg Hauls In $19.1 Million For Third Quarter
Pete Buttigieg's momendum in the polls has slowed, but his fundraising ability has not.
In addition to Senator Bernie Sanders, South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is also an early reporter of his fundraising for the third quarter of 2019, and his numbers are equally impressive:
Pete Buttigieg, who was the top fundraiser in the Democratic presidential primary from April through June, brought in another $19.1 million in the past three months.
Buttigieg’s haul is expected to once again be among the highest Democratic totals this quarter. But the South Bend, Ind., mayor’s most recent take did not hit the high mark he set in the second quarter of the year, when he led the field with $24.8 million raised.
During the third quarter, the Buttigieg campaign said it has 580,000 total contributors, a jump of about 182,000 new contributors over the previous quarter. The average contribution during the fundraising period was $32. Buttigieg’s campaign did not release a cash on hand total.
“Pete continues to stand out as having the vision and leadership voters know we need to tackle the urgent problems facing our country. It also positions us solidly as one of the top three fundraisers in this race,” Mike Schmuhl, Buttigieg’s campaign manager, said in a memo released Tuesday morning. “We will have the resources to go the full distance, and to win, the 2020 nominating contests.”
Buttigieg’s announcement will kick off a series of fundraising declarations from opponents as the Democratic candidates their money after the third quarter, which ended Monday night. And while the summer fundraising period is often slower than others, as donors take vacations and check out from politics, the rising importance of digital fundraising could give some candidates an opportunity to build on big second-quarter totals.
While Buttigieg remains in the middle of the pack in the polls, he has proven to be quite successful in the fundraising area. After a first-quarter during which he raised $7 million, which was notable for a candidate previously unknown candidate on the national stage, the South Bend, Indiana Mayor blew past those numbers in the second quarter with a haul of $24.8 million, a number close to that raised by frontrunner former Vice-President Joe Biden. The fact that he was able to follow that impressive second quarter with an equally impressive number in the third quarter is strong evidence that his campaign remains strong notwithstanding his inability to make the push into a higher tier with candidates such as Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Senator Kamala Harris.
At the very least, this number means that he’ll have sufficient resources to remain competitive for the foreseeable future. The question is whether, and when, that ability to compete will translate into better poll performance that would indicate his ability to stay relevant going forward once voting starts in February.
It’s interesting to me that the fast disclosures have come from Sanders and Buttigieg, both of whom have raised solid amounts in Q3, but are in third and fourth in the most recent NH polling from St. Anselm’s College.
Fundraising ability generally corresponds to voter support, but what we are seeing is that the people polling the highest are lagging behind in fundraising to people who are further behind in the polls. This concerns me in that people who are deeply committed to a candidate find it harder to switch to another candidate if/when their candidate drops out.
The NPR politics podcast cited a poll in, I think, Iowa (maybe it was national?) that stated many of Biden’s supporters now view Buttigieg as their second choice, which I think is his game plan at this moment–if Biden falters, he takes up the mantle of the moderate candidate.
The issue for him is that a significant amount of Biden’s support comes from the AA community, and Buttigieg’s response to the police shooting in South Bend did him no favors with that community.
@Neil Hudelson: Framed that way, the top 4 candidates now make more sense to me.
Biden, 1st choice for moderates; Warren, 1st choice for progressives. Sanders, 2nd choice for progressives; Buttigieg, 2nd choice for moderates.
@Jen: I confess, I have a prejudice against the old timers. As a boomer (and now a senior citizen), I am convinced that we need to get out of the way. I also have a bias for executive experience. Leads me to Harris and Buttigieg.
Buttigieg is running for a cabinet position. get a clue.
@Guarneri: Do be quiet. You have no idea what his plans are.
@Neil Hudelson:
I know it’s early but … I do worry that Republicans have already succeeded in “Hillarizing’ Joe Biden.
Basically, they’ve given us a preview of how they’re going to try to convince voters (‘independents’ swing voters, and key Democratic constituencies) that it was Joe who worked with a foreign government to influence an election. I’m not optimistic.
I think the Republican goal is to run against Elizabeth Warren, where they’re going run 24/7 stuff linking her to Stalin’s % Year Plans, and the confiscation of wealth.
@Scott: Booker also has executive experience, although it’s entirely understandable that you might forget he is running.
More like strolling than running. And shuffling his feet as he does so.
I like Booker. I like his personal story, and I like him in long form interviews and he is just not catching on at all.
Maybe he can translate his veganism into quirky charm and become Vice Presidential — a couple viral videos of him feeding small children tofu dogs and telling them they like it when they clearly don’t, and he can get that coveted basically-fine-but-a-little-off that we like in Vice Presidents.
@Jen:
Fall-back choices are the reason I think Kamala Harris remains a viable contender: She’d be the logical 2nd choice for women voters currently with Warren and AA voters currently with Biden. For this alone, if Harris doesn’t completely crater due to some serious campaigning misstep, I would expect she sticks around until the early primaries when actual results start to shuffle the deck and likely until Super Tuesday when California has its primary.
@Gustopher: Yeah, I forgot that Booker was Mayor of NJ. I also regret that Govs Inslee, Bullock, and Hickenlooper didn’t get a more sustained look.
President Obama didn’t do too badly for someone who didn’t really have executive experience…meanwhile, the last two Republican jokes in the White House have executive experience and we see what it’s done for them…
Maybe he will take some of that and kick it into the South Bend public school system. That way they can install air conditioning and buy some electric pencil sharpeners. Fluorescent lighting would also be nice.