Over the last month, Bernie Sanders’ surge nationally and in the early states has been the talk of the media, as well as his eye-popping fundraising. The senator rounded out the New Year with a 34.3 million dollar quarter 4 fundraising haul, with more than 5 million individual contributions during 2019, which comfortably exceeded that of his Democratic Party competition. In January, he’s dropped impressive numbers, including 4 million dollars within a 48 hour period surrounding the January debate. Most recently, after a Super PAC targeted Bernie Sanders in Iowa, his campaign raised 1.3 million dollars in a day.
.@BernieSanders speaking to supporters in a livestream says in the last two days the campaign has raised roughly $4 million from 200,000 contributions and 25,000 of those were new donors.
But while Bernie Sanders has attained snagged a small lead among an average of polls for the Iowa Caucus, a significant and underrated reality is that the Joe Biden campaign is woefully under-prepared for a protracted primary contest. It’s no secret that Biden’s fundraising, as a former Vice President and the national front-runner, has been stunningly underwhelming. Despite his standing in the race, his fundraising has lagged behind Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg in the second and fourth quarters, and behind Warren as well in the third quarter. In fact, Biden’s net fundraising in the third quarter was in the red, spending more money than he was raising.
While the Vice President’s campaign hasn’t released their expenses and cash-on-hand for Quarter 4, we can get an idea of their current fundraising based on his campaign’s fundraising emails. Candidates will often publicly track and release their fundraising goals over time to encourage their donors to give more money more frequently. Based on this, I’ve estimated Biden’s January fundraising will total to 7.3 million dollars. Feel free to follow my math below.
On January 24, 2020 at 2:46 PM, Joe Biden’s campaign sent out an email announcing a goal to raise $1,000,000 from online donations by the end of the FEC reporting period (January 31st, 2020 at 11:59PM.) On January 29, 2020 at 7:52 PM, his campaign had $275,000 left to raise to reach that goal. This amounts to about $725,000 over 5 days and 5 hours, which is $5,800 an hour, which is $139,200 a day. Over 31 days, that would amount to $4,315,200, and to account for possible surges from the Democratic Debate and the FEC deadline, as well as any other fundraising spikes, I’ve added $1,000,000, for a total of $5,315,200.
In the month of October, Biden received a surge of online donations, amounting to 5.3 million dollars. If he maintained that rate for the duration of the quarter, online donations would have amounted to 15.9 million dollars, or about 70% of Biden’s Quarter 4 total of 22.7 million dollars (he also holds high-dollar fundraisers, unlike Sanders or Warren, so it’s important to calculate this number to get an accurate estimate.) Using that percentage, and applying that to his estimated January grassroots fundraising. By dividing 1 by 70%, we find the factor that we need to multiply our January total by, which is 1.42. After multiplying the January total by this, we find a liberal estimate of $7,600,736. I would guess that he’s had less fundraisers in January as he’s spent more time in Iowa, but I don’t have other data to use for that.
7.3 million dollars is nothing to sneeze at. But with less than a week until the Iowa Caucus, and a little more than a month away from Super Tuesday, it is not enough to sustain a successful campaign. In fact, because of early voting and absentee voting, a significant portion of the voters in Super Tuesday states will cast their ballots before the South Carolina primary (Minnesota has already started). Which brings us to why Joe Biden cannot afford to lose Iowa to Bernie Sanders. The senator’s fundraising, as previously noted, has only been accelerating, in a a total of 72 hours, around the debate and after an attack ad on Sanders in Iowa was announced, Sanders’ collected more than 5.6 million dollars. Sanders will undoubtedly post an eye-popping number for his January fundraising, which is evident in the large investments his campaign is already making in Super Tuesday states. Sanders’ path is clear. Win Iowa, win New Hampshire by an even larger margin, take Nevada, be competitive in South Carolina, and ride that momentum to Super Tuesday. If Bernie wins Iowa, he will undoubtedly have an enormous war chest for Super Tuesday. Biden, on the other hand, would be hemorrhaging cash.
Biden’s campaign has previously stated that they didn’t believe they needed to win Iowa, or the early states, and would be able to sweep Super Tuesday, relying on his popularity among democratic voters and TV advertising. But Biden’s money problems has put that assertion into doubt. States like California and Texas have notoriously expensive TV markets for political advertisement. This issue has only been exacerbated by the glut of TV ad spending from the Bloomberg and Steyer campaigns. According to Republican media buyer Jim McLaughlin, who worked for Bloomberg’s campaign, “You need probably $100 million to fully compete on Super Tuesday.” Bernie Sanders will have the money to compete in these states, especially if he wins Iowa. Biden is unlikely to unless his fortunes change soon. Even though Joe Biden’s campaign considers South Carolina a fire wall before Super Tuesday, it occurs after many Super Tuesday voters have already cast their ballot, and only a few days before Super Tuesday itself, making it difficult for it to have a large impact on those states.
The cracks in the Vice President’s campaign have already become apparent. The New York Times reported today that his Iowa organization is lagging behind that of his opponents, with many Iowa precincts not manned by a Biden precinct captain. The Warren and Buttigieg campaign have, however, a precinct captain in every precinct, and the Sanders campaign will have at least two precinct captains in every precinct. While Biden would still be damaged by a Warren or Buttigieg victory in Iowa, their fundraising operations simply aren’t producing at the rate that the Vermont Senator’s is. A Sanders campaign with an Iowa win in it’s pocket would dwarf Biden financially. These financial issues had become so apparent that the Biden campaign reversed their opposition to support from Super PACs back in October to help supplement their flagging financial state. It’s unclear if this will be enough to remain financially competitive after the early states.
Not much is certain about the upcoming Iowa Caucuses. The race there can be effectively described as a four-way tie, with Sanders having a slight edge. However, what is certain that Biden’s financial operation, in it’s current state, would struggle to recover financially if Biden loses out in Iowa to Senator Sanders.