To qualify for the third debate in September, Andrew Yang needs to get 2 percent in four polls from sponsors approved by the Democratic National Committee. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images 2020 Elections Andrew Yang raises $2.8 million in second quarter

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang, one of the outsider Democrats running for president, raised $2.8 million in the second quarter of the year, his campaign told POLITICO.

The campaign said that 99.6 percent of its donors were small-dollar donors, meaning they gave less than $200. Yang's campaign declined to provide a figure for its cash on hand as of June 30.


Yang’s haul is significantly less than the top five candidates — Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg — who all raised at least $12 million and collectively raised about $100 million , but is either on par or ahead of several other traditional candidates who have already announced their fundraising totals.

Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado raised $2.8 million in the quarter, and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock raised $2 million. POLITICO reported that former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper raised just over $1 million in the second three months of the year.

Yang is a first-time candidate who has ridden his strength with small donors to a rush of media attention and an unlikely spot on the primary debate stage. His campaign locked up the 65,000 donors needed to qualify for the first two debates earlier in the process than many midtier candidates, and his campaign has said it has already cleared the 130,000-donor mark, one of the two requirements needed to qualify for the third and fourth debates in the fall. Just six other candidates have publicly said they’ve hit that number of donors.

To qualify for the third debate in September, Yang needs to get 2 percent in four polls from sponsors approved by the Democratic National Committee. Thus far, he has failed to reach 2 percent in the four qualifying polls released, but qualification doesn’t close until late August.

All candidates must report their second-quarter fundraising to the Federal Election Commission by midnight July 15.