The Clinton campaign announced their quarterly fundraising totals yesterday, raising an impressive $55 million in the final three months of the year.
This included 37 million for her primary campaign and an additional 18 million raised to support Democrats downballot. The campaign shattered their ambitions goal to raise $100 million for the primary during 2015, totaling over $112 million.
Clinton also reported having about $38 million cash on hand headed into the final month before the Iowa caucuses.
Her closest competitor, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, reported raising an impressive $33 million for his own campaign during the quarter, without disclosing how much, if any, money he raised for other Democrats.
For the year, Sanders raised about $73 million.
The Sanders campaign reports that they ended the year with $28 million cash on hand.
What does it all mean?
A few things can be taken from the numbers. While Sanders’s $4 million deficit is only slightly larger than the $3 million Hillary beat him by in Q3, that's still a troubling number for Sanders. Clearly the claim that Clinton was relying on maxed out donors and would have trouble expanding the donor base and raising money going forward was wrong. Clinton was able to improve on her Q3 primary totals by nearly $8 million- Sanders improved by about $7 million. Clinton’s ability to grow her donor base matched and actually exceeded Sanders’s this quarter.
The most troubling number for Sanders really has to be the CoH figures. Clinton’s bank account is $10 million larger than Sanders’s, after a near match after Q3. Sanders ends the quarter with CoH just slightly higher than he had at the end of last quarter.
Clinton, meanwhile, had some of the best polling and coverage she’s seen all year while increasing her CoH total by about $12 million.
As a result of her superior fundraising and more frugal spending, she will be in a stronger financial position as voting begins, matching her stronger position with the voters.
Having as big a reserve as she does is going to allow her to lock down her lead in Iowa, contest New Hampshire down to the last vote and continue to build a strong infrastructure in states going forward. Playing catch up while likely needing to increase his burn rate in order to avoid an early state sweep is not where Sanders wanted to be starting 2016. There’s no surprise they buried the release of their numbers on a Saturday morning when no one is paying attention.