Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren raised $35.5 million since President Donald Trump won office but she may have had her sights on more than just getting re-elected.
She’s one of a dozen congressional Democrats who are either considering or are potential candidates for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination and is sitting on more cash than any of the others that have filed public reports.
Following her easy victory last month in Massachusetts, in one of the nation’s most Democratic states, Warren now has $12.5 million in her campaign account and can legally transfer any portion of that to a presidential bid, if she follows through on suggestions she may seek her party’s nomination to challenge the first-term Republican president.
But one of the most prolific fundraisers of the 2018 campaign, Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, has little left from his unsuccessful, against-the-odds bid to topple Senator Ted Cruz.
The 46-year-old reported having just $476,692 in cash on hand, after spending $77.6 million to finish 2.6 percentage points behind the incumbent in a state where Republicans control all statewide offices. That’s among the lowest balances for the Democratic lawmakers believed to be contemplating White House bids. Still, he’s shown a strong ability to raise money quickly when needed: he set a quarterly fundraising record for Senate candidates by pulling in more than $38 million in the third quarter of 2018.
Campaign Reports
Warren and O’Rourke were among those required to report their latest campaign finance totals to the Federal Election Commission by late Thursday. Three senators who might mount White House bids, Corey Booker of New Jersey, Kamala Harris of California and Jeff Merkley of Oregon, didn’t have to report because they didn’t face voters in November.
Among those who did have to file for a period that covered Oct. 18 through Nov. 26, the new reports show a wide spread in potential seed money for a presidential primary race.
The group of Washington lawmakers is only a subset of the dozens of Democrats thinking of running, a list that also includes governors and at least three billionaires.
Warren, a liberal star despised by Wall Street, told reporters in Washington earlier this week that she doesn’t have a timeline for making a decision about running for president. “I said I would take a hard look at it after the election and that’s what I’m doing,” she said.
Early Money
A flush congressional campaign account can provide a leg up in the early months of a presidential nomination race. With numerous candidates expected to announce their intentions in January and February, fundraising and cash on hand at the end of the first quarter of 2019 will be viewed as an important benchmark for a candidate’s national appeal.