The Atlantic: Bernie Sanders Closes in on Hillary Clinton

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The Atlantic: Bernie Sanders Closes in on Hillary Clinton

Sanders’s success in gathering small-dollar donations speaks to the grassroots movement he has built on the campaign trail. On Wednesday night, he reached 1 million online contributions, outpacing President Obama’s 2008 campaign, which didn’t reach that mark until February of that year.

Clinton’s campaign has touted the number of small donations her camp received, but she’s also had success holding big-dollar fundraisers—a method the Sanders’s campaign has not pursued.

The two camps are also spending money at vastly different rates. In the second quarter, Clinton’s operating expenditures stood at $18.2 million compared to Sanders’s $2.9 million. As Sanders has built a national campaign infrastructure, though, his own expenditures have increased to an estimated $15 million this quarter, giving him a net gain of $11 million.

Super PACs supportive of Hillary Clinton have already banked tens of millions. Sanders’s grassroots campaign may yet prove his Achilles heel.