8 | POLITICO | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2019
Two-thirds of the Democratic
presidential candidates spent more
than they raised in the past three
months and have dwindling cash
reserves — a serious warning sign
for their viability heading into the
expensive chase for votes in Iowa
and other early nominating states.
Among the candidates in the red
after the year’s third quarter is Joe
Biden, who ended September with
$9 million cash on hand, half as
much as any of his top rivals. And
while most other candidates have
even less in their bank accounts,
which could force some of them
from the race before Iowa, the for-
mer vice president is set to be vastly
outspent in the advertising and or-
ganizing battles that will soon ramp
up in the first-caucus state.
While Biden still polls at or near
the top of the Democratic field, his
finances lag far behind those of
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren
and Pete Buttigieg, who are collec-
tively sitting on nearly $83 million
and who each spent the summer
stockpiling cash. Kamala Harris
also has slightly more campaign
cash in the bank than Biden, though
she is also carrying nearly $1 mil-
lion in debt from deferred payments
to consultants and lawyers.
The financial edge enjoyed by
Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg is
already translating into tactical
advantages: Warren paid salaries
to more than 600 staffers over the
summer and Sanders approached
that number, dwarfing the rest of
the field. Buttigieg dropped $4.
million on digital ads alone in the
past quarter, while also airing TV
ads in Iowa and New Hampshire.
That built-up cash — and the
freedom to spend big leading up
to Democratic primary voting —
is “enormously important, and I’d
argue, more important than what
you raised,” said former Vermont
Gov. Howard Dean, a 2004 presi-
dential candidate. “Cash is the big-
gest, most important metric that
tells us who can really compete and
who can’t.”
Sanders leads the field in cash on
hand with $33.7 million, followed
by Warren with $25.7 million. But
after Buttigieg ($23.4 million), there
is a steep drop-off. Harris has $10.
million on hand, followed by Biden.
No other Democrat had more than
$7 million in the bank at the end of
the third quarter, and most of them
are spending faster than they are
raising money — without even run-
ning a major TV ad campaign.
Outside the top candidates, the
cash crunch puts pressure on an
already shrinking field to narrow
further. Some candidates, assum-
ing fundraising would be better,
“built a house they can’t pay for”
in the early states, said Doug Her-
man, a Democratic consultant who
is unaffiliated in the presidential
primary.
“It leaves them with enough
money to continue but not enough
money to change anything about
their future,” Herman said. “They
won’t have the ad budgets for when
it matters.”
Former Housing and Urban De-
velopment Secretary Julián Cas-
tro burned through 91 percent of
the money he raised in the third
quarter, leaving him with just
$670,000 in the bank. Former Rep.
Beto O’Rourke used 81 percent of
his total and has $3.3 million left,
while Sen. Amy Klobuchar burned
79 percent of hers, leaving just $3.
million in the bank. None of the
three has yet qualified for the next
Democratic debate in November.
“With so many candidates in
this race, making it so much more
difficult to have a breakout mo-
ment, money in the bank is even
more important than ever before,”
said Sean Bagniewski, chairman
of the Polk County, Iowa, Demo-
cratic Party.
Failure to break out of the pack
proved lethal to the campaigns of
a handful of candidates during the
third quarter. Sen. Kirsten Gilli-
brand, Washington Gov. Jay In-
slee, Reps. Seth Moulton and EricSwalwell, and New York Mayor Bill
de Blasio dropped out during last
quarter, and their financial reports
show that many of them simply ran
out of money while trying to make
a splash in the crowded 2020 field.
“Polling and money go hand in
hand because candidates who are
out front raising the most money
are polling the best, which then
helps them raise more money,” said
Jefrey Pollock, a Democratic poll-
ster who advised Gillibrand’s presi-
dential campaign. “That’s usually
the case, but it’s particularly true
this cycle, and it makes breaking
into that top tier extremely difficult
— even more so this late into it.”
Fundraising isn’t a problem
for the quarter’s biggest spender,
billionaire Tom Steyer, who has
spent $47 million on his bid, al-
most entirely from his personal
bank account.
Businessman Andrew Yang also
stood out in his fundraising haul,
bringing in nearly $10 million in thepast quarter, easily topping some
longtime members of Congress. He
has $6.8 million in cash on hand.
The quarterly filings also cast
new light on an ongoing debate
within the Democratic Party about
how candidates should raise mon-
ey — and from whom. Earlier this
week, Warren attacked her Demo-
cratic rivals for “hobnobbing with
the rich” and called on them to
publicly disclose their bundlers
and private fundraising schedules.
Warren and Sanders have es-
chewed traditional high-dollar
private fundraising events, and
Warren recently pledged to no lon-
ger accept contributions over $
from executives at “big tech com-
panies, big banks, private equity
firms or hedge funds.” Warren and
Sanders haven’t suffered from their
refection of traditional fundraising
for high-octane online fundrais-
ing. But Buttigieg said Democrats
can’t beat President Donald Trump
“with pocket change” and the party
needs “the full spectrum of support
in order to compete.”
Sanders’ and Warren’s online
success is a measure of where the
party is going, Bagniewski said.
“If I had to pick between ActBlue
and the DNC’s megadonor list, I’d
pick ActBlue every time,” he said,
adding that the small-dollar fun-
draising platform “has fundamen-
tally changed the way we can raise
money.”
Buttigieg has also raised signifi-
cant money online, but he, Biden
and Harris have all leaned on high-
dollar donors, too, frequently ap-
pearing at private fundraisingevents.
As Biden’s campaign spending
picked up over the summer, his re-
liance on maximum donors — who
can give only once and are not a
renewable campaign resource —
meant that his fundraising could
not keep pace. More than a third
of Biden’s contributions came from
maximum donors in the second
quarter, and max-out donors com-
posed a similar portion of a smaller
pie for Biden this quarter.
But Biden’s campaign did appear
to get a fundraising lift in the final
11 days of the quarter, after news
broke Sept. 20 of a whistleblower
complaint alleging Trump improp-
erly pressured Ukraine into investi-
gating Biden and his son. The Biden
campaign responded by fundrais-
ing aggressively off the scandal,
more than doubling its previous
daily average donation total.
As the field narrows, Buttigieg’s
campaign is eyeing other candi-
dates’ bundlers. On a call with
members of its “investors circle”
last week, the Buttigieg campaign
urged its top donors to start woo-
ing other campaigns’ bundlers,
particularly from those languish-
ing in single digits, according to a
Buttigieg donor.
“Right now, money is more im-
portant criteria for a candidate than
your poll standing,” Herman said.
“You can change your poll standing
with money, and you can’t without
it.”Marc Caputo, Maggie Severns and
Zach Montellaro contributed to
this report.BY ELENA SCHNEIDER
Money: For 2020 White House hopefuls, it’s a gas
And many of them
are running on fumes
— just as expenses are
set to begin piling up
AP PHOTOS
While Joe Biden still polls at or near the top of the Democratic field, his
finances lag far behind those of many of his rivals, including Pete Buttigieg,
who dropped $4.7 million on digital ads alone in the past quarter.