(CNN) If you told Pete Buttigieg on January 1 that by the end of March his presidential campaign would have raised $7 million, he likely would have laughed. And that would have been the appropriate reaction, given how few people even knew the name of the mayor of South Bend, Indiana -- much less that he was one of the many Democrats running for president in 2020.

"This is a big number for us," wrote Buttigieg in an email to supporters. "With a first fundraising report like this, we certainly cannot be ignored."

That's correct. If Buttigieg was seen as the momentum candidate going into the end of March, his fundraising over these past few months will do nothing to slow him -- and may even give Mayor Pete a bit of a boost.

It's also true, however, that Buttigieg's $7 million haul won't be the most (or likely close to the most) raised by a Democratic presidential candidate in the first fundraising quarter of this year. ("You're going to see bigger numbers from other campaigns today and in the next few days," wrote in his email to allies. "That's OK.") Beto O'Rourke and Bernie Sanders both raised around $6 million for their presidential campaigns in the first 24 hours after making their candidacies official. And both candidates, who are expected to be the leaders of the fundraising pack along with Kamala Harris, could well double what Buttigieg collected in the first three months of the year.

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