For a guy who doesn’t fancy the role money plays in politics, Bernie Sanders is certainly proficient at collecting it.
Sanders raised whopping sum of $5.2 million after overwhelming Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire’s Democratic primary on tuesday, his campaign team disclosed this Wednesday. Reports says it’s the most money he has raised in less than a day and comes as the Vermont senator races to get to get fortified so as to survive a long nomination battle with Clinton.
Sanders, who often most times condemn the influence of billionaires in U.S. elections, he used his victory celebration rally on Tuesday night in Concord, N.H., to make fundraising speech, telling the large audience: “I’m going to hold a fundraiser, right here, right now, across America.” The average donation since that speech: $34, campaign officials reportedly said.
Sanders’ exceptional skill at raising campaign money from fragments of small donors is giving Clinton’s fundraising machine great worries, Clinton who has spent decades in public life and has cultivated close relationships with the party’s top donors and fundraisers.
He outran Clinton in January in fund raising, the first time Sanders has surpassed the former secretary of State in the money race.
Sanders has restructured the campaign-finance system a backbone of his populist campaign for the presidency, and some liberal election watchdogs say the New Hampshire results show that message really counts to voters. Republican Donald Trump, who always runs his mouth lambasting his rivals for relying on special-interest money, also pull-out a massive victory on Tuesday night.
“Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump won their victories largely by asserting their independence from the power structures and the big dollar donors that dominate their respective parties,” Miles Rapoport, president of Common Cause, said in a statement. He said campaign finance could be a “defining issue” of the election.
