Second Quarter Fundraising For ALL Democratic Candidates

All the Democratic candidates for the party's presidential nomination have finally reported the second quarter fundraising totals (see chart above). Only five candidates had healthy fundraising totals -- totals that will keep them in the race for quite a while. They are Pete Buttigieg ($24.9 million), Joe Biden ($22 million), Elizabeth Warren ($19.2 million), Bernie Sanders ($18 million), and Kamala Harris ($11.8 million).

Only one other candidate averaged at least a million dollars a month for the four month period -- Cory Booker ($4.5 million).

The rest are in a lot of trouble. Unless they can get on the debate stage and perform well enough to break through to the leading pack, they will soon have to abandon their presidential quest. They will have to quit, because they won't have the money to keep going.

The chart above is from The New York Times.

Average Support And Fundraising For Leading Democrats

These charts give us an idea of how the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination is going so far. The top chart shows the average poll support (from RealClearPolitics) for the top 10 Democratic candidates. Support is shown for only the candidate receiving an average of polls support of at least 1%.

The second chart shows the amount of money raised by the leading candidates in the 2nd quarter of 2019. Note that only five of the top ten have released their fundraising totals. That probably means the second five are disappointed in the amount they have raised. They have until July 15th to report their totals for the 2nd quarter.

The top fundraiser in the second quarter was Pete Buttigieg, who raised $24.8 million. But he lags far behind in support, and will need every bit of that (and more) if he is to join the top tier of candidates (Biden, Harris, Sanders, and Warren).

Joe Biden raised the second largest amount at $21.5 million, and currently leads in support with 26%.

Elizabeth Warren raised $19.1 million, and has 13.8% average support. All of her money came from individual donors (which is impressive, since she doesn't accept PAC money or hold high-dollar fundraising dinners).

Bernie Sanders raised $18 million, and has 14% average support. In 2016, Sanders was a fund-raising machine -- but with more candidates in the 2020 race, his totals have fallen (and I suspect Warren is getting a lot of the money that might have gone to him).

Kamala Harris raised $12 million, and has 15.2% average support. She received a significant bump in support after the first Democratic debate, but she's going to need to do a better job fundraising if she is to maintain her place among the leaders. That's possible, because $2 million of her donations came in right after the debate.

2nd Quarter Job Approval Average Of Presidents

The chart above reflects information in a new Gallup Poll. The latest was done between April 20th and July 19th of a random national sample of 52,765 adults, with a 1 point margin of error. The chart shows the average job approval of modern presidents during the second quarter of their first term as president. Once again, we find Trump trailing all the other presidents with an average job approval of 38.8%.

Campaign Giving Down In Texas For 2nd Quarter

The campaign donation numbers are in for the second quarter of 2007. Here in Texas, those numbers have gone down for all but three candidates. During the first quarter, Texas gave $8.4 million to the presidential candidates combined. In the second quarter, the donations fell to $6.3 million.

During the first quarter, the candidates were actually coming to Texas to tap what has traditionally been a very generous state. But a couple of months ago, our state legislature refused to move our primary up to February as many other states did, including some large and rich states. Since that time, candidate sightings in the state are becoming pretty rare.

Since the candidates are focusing their attention on the early primary states and not visiting Texas much, Texans have toned down their giving. But there were three candidates that bucked the trend of less giving here in Texas -- Republican Ron Paul and Democrats Barack Obama and Bill Richardson.

My favorite candidate, Bill Richardson, collected $394,696 in the first quarter. In the second quarter, he collected more totalling $560,234 (about 47% more). With any luck, Texas will give him even more in the third quarter. He's looking more and more like a viable candidate since hitting double digits in both Iowa and New Hampshire polls.

Barack Obama raised his contributions from $699,370 to $717,669, and Ron Paul raised his from $62,777 to $272,892. Paul got a definite bump from his performance in the early debates.

Nationally, campaign giving is still on a record-setting pace. Together, the candidates have raised over $265 million and it's still six months until the caucus' and primaries begin. Here's how the candidates are doing. Democrats are in blue and Republicans in red. The figures are in millions of dollars.

CANDIDATE......... 2nd Q......... TOTAL

Clinton..................27.0.............63.0

Obama...................33.1.............58.9

Romney.................20.9............44.4

Giuliani.................17.6.............35.6

McCain..................11.5.............25.3

Edwards................9.1..............23.1

Richardson...........7.0..............13.3

Dodd.....................3.2..............12.0

Biden....................2.4..............6.4

Brownback...........1.4...............3.3

Paul......................2.3...............3.0

Tancredo..............1.4...............2.8

Hunter.................0.8...............1.3

Huckabee.............0.7...............1.3

Kucinich..............0.7...............1.1

Thompson...........0.4...............0.8

Gravel..................0.1...............0.2