Fueled by Teachers and Average Donation of $18, Sanders Raised Record $25.3 Million in Third Quarter

Bernie Sanders supporters seen cheering during the rally at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. (Photo: Preston Ehrler/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Fueled by Teachers and Average Donation of $18, Sanders Raised Record $25.3 Million in Third Quarter

"Bernie is proud to be the only candidate running to defeat Donald Trump who is 100 percent funded by grassroots donations—both in the primary and in the general."

The presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Tuesday that it raised $25.3 million from 1.4 million individual donations in the third quarter of 2019, the largest fundraising quarter of any 2020 Democratic White House contender thus far.

"The billionaire class should be very, very nervous," Sanders tweeted. "The working people of this country are ready for a political revolution."

"Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign, and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution."
--Faiz Shakir, Sanders campaign manager

The Sanders campaign said the average third-quarter donation was just $18, "teacher" was the most common profession of donors, and Starbucks, Amazon, and Walmart were the most common employers of donors.

Sanders's third-quarter fundraising boom was "fueled by a September haul that set a Bernie 2020 record for total amount raised and number of individual contributions in a single month," the campaign said in a press release.

"The final day of the third quarter was the second biggest fundraising day of the campaign," said the campaign. More than 99.9 percent of Sanders's donors since the start of the campaign in February can give again.

In a statement, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said "Bernie is proud to be the only candidate running to defeat Donald Trump who is 100 percent funded by grassroots donations--both in the primary and in the general."

"Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign," Shakir added, "and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution."

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