Hillary Clinton fundraisers who remembered Barack Obama’s online fundraising prowess in 2008 had predicted for months that Bernie Sanders would raise millions after winning New Hampshire. | Getty Clinton makes pre-Super Tuesday cash dash Hillary Clinton’s top bundlers and donors are getting ready for a prolonged fight with a cash-flush Bernie Sanders.

ATLANTA — Hillary Clinton’s top bundlers and donors are reconciling themselves to a jarring new reality: The money advantage that they had long taken for granted is unlikely to last — and the campaign might even be outraised by Bernie Sanders’ over the rest of the primary season.

Now, with two weeks left before Super Tuesday and the prospect of an extended contest ahead, they’re girding for a suddenly crucial late-February fundraising sprint they hope will keep pace with Sanders’ blazing clip.


Between last Thursday’s Democratic debate and Feb. 27’s South Carolina primary, Hillary Clinton is scheduled for 13 fundraising events, Bill Clinton for 11, and Chelsea Clinton for nine — alongside a host of other fundraisers hosted by surrogates and aides, according to invitations obtained by Politico.

“They now know this is going to be a fight as prolonged as the Obama ’08 fight was,” said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a longtime Clinton ally and former Democratic National Committee chairman who’s helped with Clinton’s fundraising, echoing a theme that arose in conversations with more than a dozen people close to the Clinton finance operation. “It’s clear to me that this race will not be decided by who has the most money.

“You might have thought Bernie would have enough money to get through Iowa and New Hampshire, but not more than that,” he added. “In ordinary circumstances, [Clinton] would be in extraordinary shape.”

It’s a recognition that’s been a long time coming.

Clinton fundraisers who remembered Barack Obama’s online fundraising prowess in 2008 had predicted for months that Sanders would raise millions after winning New Hampshire, but the Vermont senator’s ultimate haul — over $7 million in the ensuing day alone, after bringing in $20 million in January — still sent a jolt across Clinton’s Brooklyn, New York, headquarters and in her early-voting state outposts.

That one-day, post-New Hampshire figure, multiple fundraisers noted, is the equivalent of a handful of Clinton’s high-dollar events put together — and the senator didn’t have to travel or court donors to get it.

Numerous high-level fundraisers associated with her campaign and super PAC continue to express confidence that Clinton will be the nominee. But they now believe that Sanders — backed by his base of small-dollar donors who can be called on repeatedly before reaching the $2,700 maximum — could still have millions of dollars on hand by July’s Democratic National Convention, even if he is far behind in the delegate count.

A handful of the upcoming Clinton events are in traditional Democratic fundraising hot spots like Chicago and Los Angeles, where Clinton hopes to tap a deep network of wealthy partisans who’ve already welcomed her to town multiple times over the course of her campaign. Several such bundlers told Politico that gathering checks had actually become easier since Clinton’s drubbing in New Hampshire, as the stakes of the contest become clearer and better-known.

“They’ll be ready, because the donors that have lined up early are all-in,” explained Orlando, Florida, attorney John Morgan, a major Democratic Party donor who’s supporting Clinton. “When she calls me for a second fundraiser, what am I going to say? ‘No, I’m with Bernie?’ No. It’s like in business, I tell people: ‘If you’re halfway across the lake and you get tired, it’s either swim back or swim on.’

“While I love everything that Bernie Sanders says, I love everything that Santa Claus says too,” added Morgan. “I don’t think Santa Claus can be president.”

But many of the February events also represent an effort to draw out new money — a particular concern given that plenty of Clinton’s core supporters have already maxed out, unlike Sanders’ small donor army — in cities that aren’t traditional Democratic fundraising hotbeds. Hillary Clinton hosted an event in Milwaukee right after the debate there, for example, on the same day her husband appeared in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Cincinnati, and their daughter raised cash in Providence, Rhode Island.

That string of closed-door events comes at the same time as Hillary and Bill Clinton themselves have begun closely eyeing the digital side of her fundraising operation, according to multiple people who have spoken with the candidate and former president in recent weeks.

Clinton went out of her way to talk up that team’s successes at the most recent debate, reminding the audience that she has 750,000 individual donors. And, according to campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin, that grass-roots fundraising program has recently “been regularly breaking records for best hour, best email, best day online.”

The campaign is looking to replicate Obama’s successful 2008 model of relying on both big-money backers and an online army, said people close to the fundraising team, shrugging off worries that they’re trying to win the last war, not the current one.

“Like President Obama in previous elections, we have focused on building a balanced operation that can provide the resources we need to run a strong campaign that can win a long and competitive primary and then be prepared to face record-breaking Republican spending in the general election,” said Schwerin.

Sanders’ team has been open about its belief that Clinton’s strategy is antiquated — the senator’s chief strategist, Tad Devine, went so far as to say on the night of the New Hampshire primary that “as of today, I believe we have more resources, campaign-to-campaign, to expend.”

They’re not alone: Some West Coast Clinton fundraisers have been vocal about their wish that the campaign’s finance scheme had a more public-facing and robust digital emphasis.

Despite the grumbling, Clinton donors from across the country were unanimous in their belief that the March primary calendar works to Clinton’s benefit — and that a spate of victories then will spark her fundraising anew.

“With all the money in the world, [Sanders] can do some ads, but not enough appearances,” Rendell said. “He has three weeks to penetrate in South Carolina. He had a year to penetrate in Iowa and New Hampshire. And now Super Tuesday is where it becomes especially hard,” said Rendell, referring to the collection of states that will vote on March 1, which are mostly larger and therefore more expensive to advertise in than the early-voting states. “In those 13 states, over that time, he can maybe make one appearance in each of those states, maybe.”

If Clinton can pull off a series of convincing victories — or at least not allow Sanders to collect headline-grabbing wins — in the March states, bundlers expect her own online fundraising to start picking up, on top of the campaign support they’re expecting in increased measure from the main pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, and a handful of advocacy groups and unions that have endorsed her. (The SEIU’s political arm, for example, reported spending $100,000 between Nevada and South Carolina on Sunday.)

That surge, they hope, would help their candidate maintain her cash-on-hand advantage over Sanders, who has had to spend heavily to build up his national campaign quickly.

Should Sanders start to roll up wins in March states, however, some Clinton allies worry that Clinton could start to run low on money as the campaign drags on, while her opponent’s coffers keep filling up.

“Now Sanders goes into South Carolina and March 1st restocked, while the Clinton camp has to figure out how to win those states frugally,” warned one former aide who stays in touch with the campaign team.

“Nothing raises more small-dollar contributions [than] seeing a guy delivering a victory speech week in and week out.”

