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Sources of Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign funding breakdown
Executive summary
Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign relied overwhelmingly on small-dollar, grassroots donations: the campaign announced more than 1 million individual donors and reported quarter-by-quarter tallies such as $25.3 million raised in Q3 and $34.5 million in late 2019, with the campaign claiming $46.5 million in February 2020 from over 2.2 million donations [1] [2] [3] [4]. Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings and aggregators like OpenSecrets provide the granular receipts and donor lists; the FEC candidate page and OpenSecrets summary pages are the primary official sources for a full breakdown [5] [6].
1. Fundraising by the numbers: what the campaign itself reported
The Sanders campaign publicly highlighted its small-dollar strength: it said it had reached 1 million individual donors and reported major monthly/quarterly hauls — for example, $25.3 million in Q3 2019 and $34.5 million from small donors in late 2019, and a February 2020 press release claiming $46.5 million raised that month from more than 2.2 million donations [1] [2] [3] [4]. These figures reflect the campaign’s messaging about scale and grassroots reach and are prominently cited in contemporaneous reporting and campaign materials [2] [4].
2. Official filings: where to find itemized receipts and donor categories
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) maintains the official candidate profile and filings for “SANDERS, BERNARD” for the 2020 cycle; those filings include committee receipts, transfers, and "support spent by others" entries and are the legally required source for itemized contribution data [5]. For a researcher seeking line-by-line contributors, the FEC candidate page is the authoritative dataset that underpins public reporting [5].
3. Aggregators and interpretive summaries: OpenSecrets and journalism
OpenSecrets offers consolidated, searchable fundraising summaries and tables of top contributors, industry breakdowns, and top donor organizations for Bernie Sanders’ 2020 cycle; its summary and top contributors pages synthesize FEC data into more digestible charts and lists [6] [7]. News outlets such as Axios, the Financial Times and NBC used campaign releases and FEC filings to report headline fundraising totals and contextual details like average donation sizes and donor occupations [2] [3] [8].
4. What “small-dollar” means in practice — campaign claims vs. what filings show
The campaign repeatedly emphasized that the vast majority of donations were small: campaign releases cited average donations around $18–$27 and noted a large number of recurring donors and non–maxed-out contributors [2] [1] [4]. OpenSecrets and the FEC data let researchers confirm the distribution of contribution amounts and the presence (or absence) of PAC transfers; use the FEC receipts to validate the campaign’s small-dollar assertions rather than relying solely on campaign statements [5] [6].
5. Transfers, other accounts and post-campaign flows to watch for
Reporters and FEC records note that Sanders entered 2019 with money left over from past committees (e.g., his Senate and 2016 campaign accounts) and that transfers between federal accounts occurred; the campaign itself noted $12.7 million in transfers made in 2019 from other federal accounts [4] [9]. Post-campaign reporting also flagged a $350,000 transfer from the Bernie 2020 campaign to the Sanders Institute in 2021, a transaction visible in FEC filings and reported by Vermont Public [10].
6. Areas where sources disagree or leave gaps
Campaign press releases emphasize narrative points (largest donor base, occupations like teachers, and retail employers), while neutral databases present raw FEC entries; the exact interpretation of how much came from small donors vs. larger donors or PACs requires inspecting the itemized FEC receipts [4] [5] [6]. Available sources do not mention a single definitive table in this set that breaks down total dollars by contribution-size buckets (e.g., <$200, $200–$2,800, >$2,800) — that level of granularity must be pulled directly from FEC line-item data [5].
7. How to get a complete, verifiable breakdown yourself
Start with the FEC candidate page for Sanders (the legal record) to download committee reports and contribution receipts; then cross-check with OpenSecrets’ 2020 candidate summary and top-donor pages for industry and donor-organization summaries [5] [6] [7]. Use contemporary reporting (Axios, FT, NBC, campaign press releases) to understand how the campaign framed those numbers and to spot transfers or one-off items reporters later highlighted [2] [3] [8] [4].
Limitations and note on sourcing: this analysis cites campaign releases, FEC candidate pages, OpenSecrets summaries and contemporary press reporting included in the provided set; for granular dollar-size distributions and individual donor identities beyond what those sources aggregate, consult the raw FEC filings referenced above [5] [6] [7].