This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

Elizabeth Warren raised $21.2m in the fourth quarter of 2019, short of the Massachusetts senator’s three main rivals in the field of more than a dozen Democratic presidential candidates.

The $21.2m tally is slightly less than her previous fundraising haul in the third quarter.

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The former vice-president Joe Biden raised $22.7m, former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg raised $24.7m, and the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders raised $34.5m.

Amy Klobuchar said on Friday that she raised $11.4m for her presidential bid in the final three months of last year, the best fundraising quarter of the Minnesota senator’s 2020 campaign but significantly less than all of her top rivals.

Warren’s most recent fundraising number is just shy of the $24.6m she raised in the third quarter of 2019, suggesting the pace of her support has not slowed dramatically. The campaign also said it had its best end of quarter ever, bringing in $4m in five days and raising $1.5m in the final day.

Overall the campaign has raised $71m from more than one million people. The average donation in the fourth quarter was $23.

But the $21.2m fundraising is unlikely to allay concerns from Warren supporters that her support among the Democratic primary electorate has waned. A Quinnipiac University poll in late November showed her dipping by 50%, putting her roughly neck and neck with Sanders and behind Buttigieg and Biden.

Warren is one of the most high-profile Democratic presidential candidates of Medicare for All, a favored healthcare proposal of liberal activists but some Democratic strategists and voters have begun to wonder whether the massive healthcare system overhaul would make a Democratic nominee untenable in a general election against Donald Trump.

Even so, Warren’s fundraising haul is ahead of other Democratic presidential contenders. Businessman Andrew Yang raised $16.5m and the Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard raised only $3.4m.

Warren was expected to post a fundraising number somewhere around $20m. Roger Lau, her campaign manager, noted in an email to supporters that the campaign hit that mark without fundraising from political action committees or fundraisers, a point the Warren campaign has eagerly contrasted with Buttigieg among others.

“Elizabeth didn’t host any private events to raise money from wealthy donors behind closed doors. She didn’t take any money from Washington lobbyists or Pacs,” Lau wrote. “And we still hit our goal. That’s because grassroots donors are building a grassroots movement to change the way campaigns are funded. And that’s a big part of how we’ll change who government works for.”

Klobuchar said 145,126 people donated between September and December, with an average contribution of $32. Klobuchar’s campaign manager, Justin Buoen, said a “massive surge in grassroots support”, thanks to strong performances in fall debates, helped the campaign double its staff in Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters cast the first votes for the Democratic nomination, and invest in the next two states – Nevada and South Carolina. The campaign also is spending money in states that will vote in the 3 March Super Tuesday contests.

But with just a month until the first primary votes are cast in Iowa on 3 February, Klobuchar trails – in polling and fundraising – the four top candidates: Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg.

The large numbers for the candidates are a sign that the fight for the Democratic nomination could continue for several months, making it difficult for candidates who don’t have strong campaign funding to stay in the race to replace Trump.

The president’s campaign said Thursday that it had raised $46m during the last quarter and had more than $102m cash on hand.

The size of the Democratic candidates’ campaign bank accounts won’t be clear until the 15 January federal reporting deadline.

Associated Press contributed to this report