Bernie Out-Raises Biden in Obama-Trump Swing Counties

[brooklynite]

Daily Beast

Former Vice President Joe Biden has built his early polling lead in the 2020 Democratic primary on the argument that he is the Democratic candidate best positioned to take on President Donald Trump. He referenced his standing against Trump in the first TV ad he ran and has spoken repeatedly about winning over Republican voters who, he argues, have grown disenchanted with the president.

But in at least one “electability” metric, Biden is lagging behind his Democratic competition. In the 206 counties that voted for Barack Obama twice before backing Trump in 2016, the former VP has fewer donors than three primary opponents.

According to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data on the Democratic online giving portal ActBlue, 12,040 donors from those Obama-Trump counties made 19,885 donations to Biden during the first six months of 2019. By contrast, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) had 13,674 donors make 26,298 donations from those counties and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg had 14,294 donors make 23,320 donations from those counties.

Biden has only been in the race since late April, compared to Warren and Buttigieg, who had launched presidential exploratory committees by the beginning of 2019 and late January respectively. But the latter two have had stronger fundraising months more recently. All three of them trail Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)—whose campaign helped compile the data—when it comes to donors from Obama-Trump counties. The Democratic-Socialist had 33,185 donors make 81,841 donations in those areas, a haul that his team was eager to tout.

[George II]

1. Nothing in that article says anything about the amounts of those donations, so....

....the headline "out-raises" is a fallacy.

However, they do point out that Biden gave the early candidates a two month head start. Sanders began accepting contributions on February 19, Biden on April 18.

The bottom line is that candidates don't spend "donors" or "donations" on media buys, they spend dollars.

In real dollars, Biden received $22.0 million in 73 days, an average of $301,000 per day. Sanders received $36.2 million in 132 days, an average of $274,000 per day.

[katmondoo]

2. Maybe Bernie can buy another vacation house when this is over

[vsrazdem]

3. That was tacky.

[katmondoo]

4. Yes it was, I apologize

[vsrazdem]

6. +

[LincolnRossiter]

5. Biden's been in the race half as long as the other leading candidates...

NT