South Bend mayor receives contributions from more than 400,000, securing his spot on stage as outsider campaigns worry

Pete Buttigieg has said he took in $24.8m during the second fundraising quarter, more than triple the amount he raised during the first three months of the year for his surprise hit presidential campaign.

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Buttigieg was the first White House contender to announce his fundraising numbers for the quarter, which ended at midnight. The $24.8m sum topped the $18m raised last quarter by the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who led the Democratic field in fundraising during that period.

Buttigieg’s haul amounts to a show of force at a critical juncture in the race where fundraising figures and the number of people giving to a campaign are not just indicators of viability but criteria for qualifying for the debate stage in September.

The mayor of South Bend, Indiana is doing well enough in public polls and has received contributions from more than 400,000 people, securing his spot in the September debates.

Democratic National Committee requires participants to hit 2% in multiple polls and 130,000 individual donors. Though many campaigns in the 25-strong field are worried, DNC chairman Tom Perez has resisted pressure to relax requirements.

Currently, the only other locks for the fall debates are former Vice-President Joe Biden, Sanders, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and California senator Kamala Harris.

“Pete has proved why he is a top-tier candidate for the nomination,” campaign manager Mike Schmuhl wrote in an email to supporters. “From town halls on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News to last week’s debate, he’s shown the country what I’ve known for a long time: Pete is the best person to bring a new generation of leadership to Washington.”

Buttigieg, 37, has endured a difficult spell in his home city, where the officer-involved shooting death of an African American man has stirred anger in the community and led to national press attention over his record in office. The mayor has repeatedly left the campaign trail to return home, this weekend attending a peace march and community events.

Buttigieg, an openly gay Afghanistan veteran and Rhodes scholar who runs a small midwestern city, surprised many people with a first-quarter haul of roughly $7m. That topped many of his better-known rivals and helped place him in the top tier of a crowded 2020 field.

He was generally adjudged to have performed well in the first debates last week, although Harris, New Jersey senator Cory Booker and former US housing secretary Julían Castro were generally said to have come out strongest. In the realclearpolitics.com average of national polls, Buttigieg has fallen behind Harris into fifth place. In the average for Iowa, which votes first, he is third.

Buttigieg’s latest numbers further cement him as a leading candidate and are sure to draw notice from rival campaigns, many of whom have struggled to raise money. His campaign says he has $22.6m cash on hand and received money from donors from all 50 states as well as US territories, with an average contribution of about $47.