February 20, 2019 10:33 AM UTC

Bernie Reaps Millions On Day One

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• by: Colorado Pols

Politico reports and if you’re paying attention to the 2020 Democratic presidential race you’d better take note:

Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign is off to an impressive start: The Vermont senator crushed other Democratic candidates in his first day of online fundraising, and boasted social media stats that easily outstripped his competition, too.

The Vermont senator brought in more than $5.9 million from more than 220,000 donors in the 24 hours since he announced his presidential candidacy, according to his campaign. He easily eclipsed other announced 2020 candidates’ first-day fundraising figures — as well as his own in 2015, when he he raked in more than $1.5 million online in the first 24 hours.

To be clear, we don’t have an opinion yet on the viability of another run by Sen. Bernie Sanders for President in 2020. With a literal baseball team roster of candidates in the running or considering, there’s no way to predict as of now who will emerge as the favorite–and after the experience of 2016 it would be folly to try.

But that is a large pile of money, demonstrating how Bernie retains much love among the Democratic grassroots and left generally. There is a broad consensus among honest Democrats in hindsight that Sanders would have outperformed Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup against Trump in 2016, quite possibly decisively. Whether Bernie’s moment has passed, fairly or not, is a subject we expect to see the subject of lively debate.

In the meantime, Bernie’s not going to hurt for money to campaign with.

Every other 2020 contender, including our local favorites, should be on notice.