More than 225,000 donors gave from all 50 states, an early sign of the Vermont senator’s fundraising prowess

Bernie Sanders raised a stunning $5.9m from more than 225,000 donors in the first 24 hours after announcing he would again seek the Democratic nomination for president, according to his campaign.

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The donations, which came from all 50 states and averaged $27, are an early sign of the Vermont senator’s fundraising prowess in what is expected to be a competitive – and expensive – primary race to clinch the Democratic nomination. His campaign said that Sanders raised more than $6m by 9am on Wednesday, and that supporters had contributed $600,000 in donations that will recur each month, an amount that should raise at least another $6.6m ahead of the first caucuses and primaries next year.

At the start of the 2020 campaign, many Democrats have disavowed donations from corporate Pacs and are emphasizing the importance of small-dollar donations, an early litmus test of strength and grassroots energy in a crowded field. With Sanders’ entry in to the race on Tuesday, 12 candidates are now seeing the Democratic nomination – with decisions expected to follow from former vice-president Joe Biden, former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Sanders, who has near-universal name recognition and one of the largest fundraising lists in US politics, raised far more than many of the other 2020 candidates after their campaign launches.

By comparison, Senator Kamala Harris raised more than the $1.5m in the first 24 hours of her campaign. Harris had been the biggest first-day fundraiser in the race so far and matched what Sanders’ raised in April 2015 after he launched his bid for the nomination that year. Meanwhile, Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar’s campaign said she raised more than $1m in the 48 hours after launching her presidential bid this month.

Sanders, a self-styled Democratic socialist who spent much of his nearly 30-year congressional career on the political fringe, launched his campaign on Tuesday morning, casting his candidacy as the best way to accomplish the mission he started four years ago when he ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

“Together, you and I and our 2016 campaign began the political revolution,” he said in an email announcing his decision to supporters. “Now, it is time to complete that revolution and implement the vision that we fought for.”

Sanders, 77, running as a Democrat again, believes he can prevail in a crowded and diverse field that includes several female and minority candidates, and then beat Donald Trump, whom he called on Tuesday “the most dangerous president in modern American history”.

The progressive policies Sanders helped popularize in 2016 – Medicare for All, a $15 an hour federal minimum wage, tuition-free college, demands to fight climate change more aggressively and to tax the wealthy at a higher rate – have now been broadly embraced by several other presidential candidates.

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Asked in an interview on CBS on Tuesday morning what would be different about his 2020 campaign, Sanders replied: “We’re gonna win.”

However, whether he can once again capture grassroots support, and whether the energy of his past campaign will pass to other candidates, will likely be a central factor in determining who Democrats nominate to take on the sitting president at the next election. His campaign believes his initial fundraising haul is an early sign that he can.

A series of early Sanders hires for top roles are intended to illustrate his campaign’s commitment to demographic and geographic diversity.

Faiz Shakir, the political director of the American Civil Liberties Union, will serve as campaign manager. The 39-year-old former aide to Harry Reid will be the first Muslim to manage a presidential campaign. The campaign also hired Analilia Mejia, the progressive organizer and former executive director of the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, to be the political director and Sarah Badawi, the former government affairs director for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, to be her deputy.