Hillary Announces Raising $26 Million This Quarter
Hillary's numbers are in: Her campaign announced today that she's raised $26 million this quarter, a number that was predicted by some but is nonetheless a staggering sum -- a record, in fact. Here's the breakdown from her campaign:
* $26 million raised in new receipts since launching her campaign on January 20* 80 % of the contributions were $100 or less.
* $4.2 million raised on the internet (including $1 million in a week during the One Week, One Million campaign, and nearly $600,000 online in the 36 hours preceding the deadline)
* $6 million in total grassroots donations (internet plus direct mail and telemarketing receipts)
* 50,000 donors (tens of thousands of them new donors)
* Contributions received from residents of all 50 states (plus Washington, DC)
* $10 million transferred from Senator Clinton’s successful senate reelection account
Many insiders are closely watching the money race between Hillary and Obama, with some wondering whether Obama will startle Camp Hillary with a surprisingly big haul -- and others noting that the Hillary people are working very hard to post intimidating numbers that will convince everyone of her inevitability. There are, of course, other candidates in the Democratic primary, but nonetheless, insiders seem to be focused on little other than the money race between Hillary and Obama. Obama's campaign is still tallying up his take. We'll bring you the rest of the candidates' numbers when they're available.
Update: Here are the numbers from the other Dem candidates:
John Edwards, $14 million Bill Richardson, $6 million Chris Dodd, $4 million Joe Biden $3 millionStill no tally from Obama's campaign, though reports are estimating that he'll pull in the neighborhood of $20 million.
Some quick math, making some assumptions, I know, but it's 'back of the envelope':
-- Total of about $4 million from contributions under $100 (assuming 40,000 = 0.8 * 50,000 contributions, at $100 each; in actuality there are probably more contributions, and the average is under $100, but we're going for ballpark numbers). The final FEC reports will allow a breakdown by 'under $200' and 'over $200'.
-- This leaves ~$22 million from the other 10,000 donors, or about $2200 average. This would basically max out these folks for the primary. They can give for the general, too, and this average could be a lot of $1000s and a lot of $4600s, but this would seem to indicate she could probably pull in less than $20 million more from big donors before she'll have to seriously expand the # of big donors and not just the size of their contributions.
For scale comparison:
-- Edwards is claiming almost $3.3 million online from over 35,000 contributions. Obama claims over 83,000 donors (unclear if this is overall, or just online; close reading would seem to indicate this is overall).
April 1, 2007 6:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aren't there, like, a lot of poor people in this country? There's going to be 1 billion spent on the 08 race, and yet tonight, how many people are going to bed without food?
Insanity.
I think I'm giving money to City Harvest, instead of one of the Dems for now.
Dissent Protects Democracy.
April 1, 2007 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've seen a list of some of her big NY donors' giving histories, and I wouldn't be surprised if she has substantially more $4600 donors than you'd normally expect out of that 10,000. I can think of more than a few of her donors off the top of my head who gave the federal maximum to Dems in the '04 and '06 cycle. The donors who maxed out to her Senate campaigns with enough cash left over to max to DCCC and DSCC are probably more than happy to doublemax to her Presidential account this early. I expect to see some familiar names next to "$2300P/$2300G" on her report.
April 1, 2007 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hell, Coca-Cola alone spent about $1.8bn in '05 on advertising. It's pricey to get a message out across the country. I just wish that the campaign cash was being spent on ads of a more, shall we say, substantial nature than Coke's.
April 1, 2007 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just to get this straight:
Campaigns can take in $4600 from a single individual but half of that has to be spent in the general election????
Is that the way it is and if so, does a candidate who doesn't win the nomination have to return the other $2300?
Thanks if anyone can answer.
April 1, 2007 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Individual can donate $2300 to primary election and another $2300 to the general election. The filing reports due mid-month will tally for primary and for general.
Not sure about returning $2300 for the general if person doesn't win the nomination.
Also, Hillary can transfer $11 million from the funds she raised for the Senate into the primary or the general election for the Presidency.
April 1, 2007 11:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks. Very interesting to hear what the others report, especially Obama. Its exciting that he's becoming the "insurgent" candidate plus having an actual "constituency" (black voters and why not?) plus, apparently, a very sizable Geffen kind of big money donor group that doesn't want a Clinton family dynasty.
April 2, 2007 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Black voters are not any candidates constituencies. Neither Edwards, Obama nor Clinton can claim that.
April 2, 2007 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think black voters are a "natural" constituency for Obama and theres nothing wrong with it. Its like Lieberman and Jewish voters. Or like a candidate being the "favorite son/daughter" from a state. But that doesn't mean everyone in that constituency is for that candidate.
Having watched this idea of an "insurgent" or non-establishment campaign from '92 (Brown, Tsongas, Buchanan, Perot) and especially Dean in 2004, its intriguing that its happening with Obama. If you watched that webcast from Onawa, IA on his website, these are later-middle-aged white people mostly. I wonder if they are like me and what got them interested in politics, really interested, was the Savings and Loan Bail-out and how appalling it was and how angry I felt at the rip-off of hundreds of billions of dollars that, if we were going to spend them, could have done so much good.
Anyway - and I am surprised and didn't see it coming - Obama is the first candidate to have those non-establishment people interested in his campaign PLUS a natural constituency that is very large and important in the Democratic primaries. PLUS, apparently, big donors who are bucking the establishment this year (because they don't want a Clinton family dynasty?). Maybe its a very serendipitous confluence of forces behind this candidate??
April 2, 2007 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
The same probably holds true for Obama who is raising for General and Primary at the same time--and tried to make a big deal out of returning general election money. To me this seems like a game to artificially inflate their numbers, as you point out. Its fine to criticize Clinton for this, but it doesn't seem fair to gloss over the other folks who do the same.
April 2, 2007 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you are wrong. Ask Michael Steele, Colin Powell and Alan Page.
What is this the new buzzword, 'insurgent' to go with 'inexperienced'?
I think there is a confluence of forces.
I disagree about the 'natural' constituency because it is a myth. No candidate has a 'natural constituency' just like Hillary doesn't have one with females. Nor Edwards with Southerners. When it comes to politics, voters have learned not to go with gender, looks or ethnicity. Politics uses those as swords. Just as they had Iglesia investigating voter fraud and prosecuting immigrant cases, while they have Gonzales enforcing the prosecution of immigration cases and they had Yoo stripping citizens of constitutional rights and sanctioning torture while ignoring the Geneva convention rules. All of these are minorities being used to strip citizens of their Voting Rights as well as civil rights. Not to even mention the immigration angle with these minority names.
I am not sure if this is seredipitious or just the 'right time' for a candidate with a unifying voice after 16 years of contentious political fighting with talk radio polarizing all issues to keep their market share. Folks are tired of politics as war. Politics is not a sport when your family lacks health insurance, you can't afford college tuition and more and more kids are uneducated. There is no way to incarcerate and build more prisons as answers. Meth is a national issue and there are not enough jail cells or prisons to hold all those crazy addicts who rob, murder and asault their own kids.
I do think Obama is the right person, at the right time with the right message and there may be something to what you are saying as well, in that establishment big donors and non-establisment people as well as independents find that his message and brand of consensus politics strikes a chord and resonates with their own individual beliefs and values.
You could be onto something with the Clintonbush dynasty issue. That seems to ring true with awful lot of folks. It might make a good campaign talking point for Obama.
April 2, 2007 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the reply. I guess we're on different "pages" (that expression about being on the same page). I like "insurgent" candidates because of the voters behind them. The establishment people have done us such terrible disservices that if I didn't see other people as appalled as I am, I'd feel even more appalled.
I think its normal for at least a strong percentage of black voters to choose Obama as the one to get behind. Why not? The Obama campaign must think so, too, as I got an email just the other day that the 75,000th donor was a fellow named Rashed who made his first donation to a campaign ever because he could now tell his daughter that she could aspire to be president.
It looks pretty good; everything I've been reading about the fundraising looks good.
April 2, 2007 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe, but I don't think the Obama numbers will reflect nearly the proportion of supermax donors that Clinton's will. If nothing else, the sheer volume of Obama donors will probably largely skew his proportion.
If I had to guess, I'd say that right now the Obama finance team is trying to sort Primary receipts from General receipts because they think they've passed Hillary on primary contributions. And I really can't imagine that, with over 80,000 individual contributors, his proportion of large donors to small donors will remotely approach Hillary's.
April 3, 2007 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink