Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leads a field of 18 Democratic Party candidates in the money chase with $18.2 million raised in the first quarter of the 2020 presidential campaign. He’s tailed by newcomers like Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) with $12 million raised and former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, who pulled in $9.4 million. That none of these totals particularly stands out as a testament to the divided nature of the field. There is no heir apparent to former President Barack Obama, and the Clinton couple’s domination of Democratic Party politics for the past 25 years was shattered with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss. The first-quarter fundraising results provide some of the first data available to see who will emerge as the banner holder for the party and the challenger to President Donald Trump. So far this year, Trump has raised about $30 million. Here are five takeaways from the fundraising and spending totals reported on Monday by the 15 candidates who announced prior to March 31. Sanders’ Relative Dominance It’s not just that Sanders raised more than anyone else in the field, it’s also that he did so while leading in essentially every other metric the candidates are considering. He has more individual donors than any other candidate and a smaller average donation. A whopping 84% of the $18 million he brought in came from donations of less than $200 ― the next closest candidate is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), with 70%. He has more than $28 million on hand, although only $18.1 million is in his main campaign account. His campaign also has signed up more than $1 million worth of monthly recurring donations, which greatly lowers the risk of a burnout. Not only is he in the lead of the money chase, he also appears to have room to grow.

Money doesn’t buy everything ― more on that in a bit ― but Sanders’ substantial early financial advantage could help him spread his message and hire organizing staff throughout the country. Sanders’ main rival in polling, former Vice President Joe Biden, still hasn’t announced his entrance into the presidential contest, and he could challenge the Vermonter’s monetary supremacy, even if he’s unlikely to match Sanders’ popularity with small donors. And Warren; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Harris; and O’Rourke are all gunning for at least parts of Sanders’ base of liberals and young people. Cash Rules Tim Pawlenty. Scott Walker. These candidates weren’t just monotone Midwesterners with less charisma than a ham sandwich. They also burned through their money early, never caught fire with voters and were run out of the primaries ― broke ― months before the Iowa caucuses. That’s why it’s important to keep track of the candidates’ cash-on-hand totals and their burn rate (how much of their total raised do they spend each quarter).

Cheryl Senter/ASSOCIATED PRESS Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), here at a fundraiser in New Hampshire on Saturday, had the second highest amount of money available among the Democratic presidential candidates on April 1, thanks to a transfer of $10.4 million from her Senate campaign.

Sanders, the top fundraiser, also has the most cash on hand, with $15.6 million as of March 31. He spent only 27% of what he raised. But the other cash hoarders can’t exactly say the same. Warren had $11.2 cash available at the end of March, but she had burned through 87% of what she raised, including spending $1 million that went to two top Democratic digital firms. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) had $10.1 million on hand but similarly burned through 81% of what she raised. What’s the deal? Unlike Pawlenty and Walker, who were swing state governors, Warren and Gillibrand are senators from safe Democratic states. This allowed them to hoard money raised for their Senate campaigns and then transfer it over to fund their presidential bids. The big question for their campaigns is if they can ramp up their fundraising to build a bigger war chest as the campaign gets more expensive. Buttigieg so far has the lowest burn rate, having spent only 9% of the $7 million he has raised.

Less Than 2008? The last time Democrats had an open presidential primary with a large field of well-qualified candidates, way back in 2008, their top prospects raised eye-popping sums. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama each raised about $26 million for the first three months of 2007. This time around, Sanders ― with a haul of $18.2 million ― is the only candidate to come close. (These totals only count direct contributions, not transfers from other committees.) This has spurred concerns that donors are sitting on the sidelines. And they certainly are. Past presidential campaigns usually launched with the backing of big donors connected to the party apparatus. Most of the big donors who fueled the last three Democratic nominating contests have yet to pick a candidate. Big donors sitting on the sidelines is partly due to the increased emphasis on small donations. Three candidates ― Sanders, Warren and O’Rourke ― have entirely eschewed big-donor fundraising events in pursuit of small donations. Other candidates have felt pressure to boost their own small-donor totals to prove they are true grassroots candidates. Even without big donors fully engaged, the combined fundraising totals of the candidates in 2019 and in 2007 aren’t too far off. (There are, of course, far more candidates this time around.) The seven candidates who began their 2008 campaigns in the first three months of 2007 raised a combined total of $78.3 million. The 15 candidates that HuffPost tracked raised $77 million. Everybody calm down. Big Names Could Struggle To Make The Debate Stage Andrew Yang, a former technology executive who remains a mystery to much of the American public, has collected the 65,000 individual donations necessary, under Democratic National Committee rules, to qualify for the first official Democratic debates in Miami in June. So has Buttigieg, who started 2018 as the nationally anonymous mayor of a mid-sized Midwestern city. Who hasn’t? Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Hillary Clinton campaign vice presidential finalist who turned in some of the Democrats’ most impressive electoral performances in the GOP wave years of 2010 and 2014. Julián Castro, a former Obama Cabinet member and the most prominent Latino ever to seek the presidency. And Jay Inslee, who served in Congress for more than a decade before becoming a two-term Washington governor and is building his campaign around climate change, one of the Democratic base’s top issues. Or Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey. Or Gillibrand.

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), here at an Iowa fundraiser Thursday, raised the second-highest total among the Democratic candidates in the first quarter of 2019, with $12 million.