Sanders says he raised $25M in January, will bolster ad buys

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Bernie Sanders says he raised a whopping $25 million in January and will use his presidential campaign’s flush bank account to increase television and digital advertising in 10 states.

The Vermont senator spent $50 million during the final three months of 2019 and finished the year with $18.2 million in cash on hand, putting him in a stronger position than many of his rival candidates even before his latest bonanza last month. Partial results show Sanders in a near tie for first with Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, in Monday’s leadoff Iowa caucuses.

New Hampshire hold its primary next Tuesday.

Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, announced Thursday that his candidate will immediately increase staffing in states that vote during the Democratic primary’s Super Tuesday, on March 3. The campaign also plans to spend $5.5 million on television and digital ads in eight new states: Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah.

And Sanders will expand ad buys the campaign already made in California and Texas, the two largest states voting on Super Tuesday.

“Bernie’s multiracial, multigenerational, people-driven movement for change is fueling 2020’s most aggressive campaign for president,” Shakir said in a statement, saying the campaign is “in a strong position to compete in states all over the map.”

January was the Sanders campaign’s best fundraising month to date, featuring donations from 648,000 people, including 219,000 new donors, the statement said. Since announcing his presidential campaign in February 2019, Sanders has raised more than $121 million, built on donations from more than 1.5 million people. That total doesn’t include an additional $12.7 million in transfers all made in 2019 from Sanders’ other federal accounts, the campaign said.

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