Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has raised as much as $100 million from small-dollar donors contributing $200 or less to his campaign — in less than three months.
Trump’s campaign has surpassed a “threshold no previous Republican has ever achieved in a single campaign,” according to Politico, which looked over Federal Election Commission filings and spoke with operatives familiar with the campaign’s fundraising efforts.
John McCain and Mitt Romney raised less than $64 million each in small donations in 2008 and 2012. Barack Obama set the record in 2012 with $483.6 million in under-$200 donations in 2012. During the 2016 cycle, Vermont independent and socialist Bernie Sanders raised nearly $202 million before conceding and endorsing Hillary Clinton, who has raised $156 million in small donations through July, amid reports her campaign has “purposefully and repeatedly overcharged” her poorest donors who agreed to only make a one-time contribution to her campaign.
Trump raised $5 million in a single day: August 31, the day he held a joint press conference in Mexico with President Enrique Peña Nieto and gave a powerful speech outlining his immigration policy in Phoenix, Arizona.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. He’s the Republican Obama in terms of online fundraising,” said one senior GOP operative.