Friday, 29th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Biden lags in Q3 fundraising in Democratic primary race

By AFP
04 October 2019   |   10:42 am
Democratic frontrunner in the 2020 US election Joe Biden announced on Thursday he'd raised $15.2 million in the third quarter, far less than progressive rival Bernie Sanders or centrist mayor Pete Buttigieg.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – OCTOBER 02: Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the 2020 Gun Safety Forum hosted by gun control activist groups Giffords and March for Our Lives at Enclave on October 2, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Nine Democratic candidates are taking part in the forum to address gun violence one day after the second anniversary of the massacre at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas when a gunman killed 58 people in the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history. Ethan Miller/Getty Images/AFP

Democratic frontrunner in the 2020 US election Joe Biden announced on Thursday he’d raised $15.2 million in the third quarter, far less than progressive rival Bernie Sanders or centrist mayor Pete Buttigieg.

The figures come as the former vice president has seen his lead in polls shrink in recent weeks, with progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren overtaking him in several surveys.

However average polling still puts Biden in first among Democrats vying for the party’s nomination in 2020 with 26.2 percent support, according to website RealClearPolitics.

In total, Biden has raised $36.7 million since his relatively late entry into the race in April, according to his campaign.

That is much less than the $61.5 million independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who is third in the average polling with 16.8 percent, brought in since entering the race in February, including $25.3 million raised in the third quarter.

Warren, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, has been consistently polling at an average of 24 percent since the beginning of the summer, putting her in second place.

She has not released fundraising totals for the quarter running from July through September.

Candidates aren’t required to publish fundraising totals before October 15, but often do so early if the results are strong.

The Buttigieg campaign announced on October 1 that the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, raised $19.1 million between July and the end of September from 580,000 unique donors.

However, polls show his campaign stagnating, with support running around five percent.

Biden has in recent weeks been caught in the maelstrom surrounding President Donald Trump.

A government whistleblower has accused Trump of pressing Ukraine for damaging information on the former vice president under Barack Obama.

The scandal has pushed Democrats in the House of Representatives to open an impeachment inquiry. Trump has meanwhile taken to calling Biden “corrupt.”

The impact of the scandal is unclear, as the impeachment proceedings began near the end of September.

Sanders was recovering on Thursday after putting his campaign on hold the day prior to be treated for a blocked artery. His wife says he plans to participate in this month’s Democratic debate.

The winner of the Democratic primary will be decided next year and is set to face Trump, a Republican, in the November 2020 presidential election.

In this article

0 Comments