Pete Buttigieg raised $2.7 million in days after Iowa
Pete Buttigieg‘s campaign will announce in an email to supporters that they raised $2.7 million since the day after the Iowa caucuses, according to a copy of the email provided to CNN.
The announcement, which will come on Thursday from the Pete for America team, tells supporters that the campaign raised $2.7 million from 63,841 individual donations since Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. The campaign will also tout that over 22,000 of these donations came from donors new to the campaign.
The results out of Iowa remain up in the air, as chaos in the state has left the Iowa Democratic Party still counting votes from the first contest in the nominating process. As of Thursday, Buttigieg has a .1% lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with 97% of precinct reporting, but the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor labeled himself “victorious” days before, in his caucus night speech.
Sanders’ campaign announced Thursday that it had raised more than $25 million in January.
That massive number led the Buttigieg campaign to ask supporters to consider a contribution.
“But there are some hard truths we have to face as a team, too. This is not enough,” the email reads of the money raised. “If you can, please consider making a donation right now so we can harness the momentum out of Iowa and win in New Hampshire on Tuesday.”
The email continues: “Bernie is still first in the polls in New Hampshire, and we’re being massively outraised by his campaign. In January alone, his campaign raised more than $25 million, and they’re being supported by NINE outside dark money groups, too.”
Buttigieg’s campaign spent big in Iowa and hoped that a strong finish would be followed by an influx of cash to replenish its coffers.
The campaign has spent more than $11 million on television, digital and radio ads in the state, a figure only slightly behind billionaire Tom Steyer and Sanders. And Buttigieg had roughly 170 people in 34 statewide offices in the Hawkeye State for weeks.
“Our strategy since the summer is to use Iowa as a launching pad,” a source close to the Buttigieg campaign told CNN before Iowa. “Electoral success is essential to show, not tell for Pete, and that means that we focused resources accordingly.”
The source added: “Super Tuesday is resource intensive and we’ll need to raise the revenue to be competitive.”
