Allies of President Donald Trump gloated last week at the news that his campaign outraised each of the Democratic presidential candidates. But when taken together, Democrats are outraising the president to an unprecedented degree.
The top nine remaining candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination combined to raise nearly $400 million in 2019. Trump raised $144 million over the same period. (He raised an additional $67 million in the preceding two years.) There is no recent precedent for the leading presidential candidates of an out-of-power party doubling the fundraising total of the incumbent.
The Republican Party candidates running to defeat President Barack Obama barely outraised him with $156 million combined to Obama’s $128 million in 2012. President George W. Bush raised $133 million to the Democratic candidates’ $132 million in 2004. (Candidates largely accepted public funds for their campaigns prior to the 2000 election.)
This doesn’t mean that the eventual Democratic nominee will receive the benefit of all the money raised by other candidates. Some donors will give only to their preferred candidate. And other donors give to multiple candidates. What this total shows is that the out-of-office party, in this case, the Democrats, is engaged in the election at a level not seen in 2004 or 2012.
This record fundraising dovetails with polls showing record levels of enthusiasm among voters for the 2020 election.
A CNN poll in December found 50% of the electorate to be “extremely enthusiastic” about the 2020 election. That is nearly double the 26% who said the same thing in October 2016. A Gallup poll found voter enthusiasm reaching levels in November 2019 previously seen only immediately prior to elections.
That enthusiasm is not constrained to Democrats, of course. Trump supporters are equally, if not more, enthusiastic about voting in 2020. And their donations provide Trump a strong position to start the election year. The Trump campaign boasts more than $100 million cash on hand heading into this election year. The Republican National Committee has also reportedly raised $241 million for 2019. The Democratic National Committee had raised only $86 million by the end of the year.
The eventual Democratic Party nominee will need to be able to tap the broader enthusiasm of the party’s base to counter Trump’s vast resources.
The 2020 Democratic Party candidates included here are former Vice President Joe Biden; Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.); Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii); former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang. The total used here excluded self-financed candidates, such as billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, and also money transferred from previous congressional campaigns to current presidential efforts. (It also does not include Bennet’s fourth-quarter fundraising, which he has not yet made public.)
These Democratic presidential candidates aren’t just raising an unprecedented combined amount combined compared with the incumbent president. Their total raised could exceed all previous combined totals raised under the current campaign finance rules.
The only election that could compare to Democratic fundraising in 2020 is the 2008 primary that saw an underdog Obama defeat front-runner Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party field of eight candidates raised $295 million across all of 2007. When adjusted for inflation, that total reaches $365 million.
But that was a historic clash between Obama and Clinton, two of the greatest fundraisers the Democratic Party has known in the brief history of the 21st century. They each raised more than $100 million (not adjusted for inflation) in 2007. None of the current candidates raised that much in 2019.