Dean Phillips raised $1M last quarter

Rep. Dean Phillips raised $1 million in outside donations in the final quarter of 2023 for his challenge to President Joe Biden.

The Minnesota Democrat's team, which shared the figures first with POLITICO, said more than 6,000 donors pitched in and 75 percent of the contributions were less than $50.

His aides cast his fundraising haul as an achievement in the face of a party establishment that has been united behind Biden.

“Despite an onslaught of opposition by the Democratic Party, Dean Phillips has built a nationwide movement,” said Phillips’ campaign manager, Zach Graumann, in a statement. “We are building a campaign that will see us not just through New Hampshire, but through Super Tuesday all the way to the Democratic convention. We are just getting started in this race.”

But it’s still a modest sum for a little-known challenger looking to unseat a sitting president.

The team declined to say how much Phillips, the wealthy heir to a liquor fortune, contributed to his own campaign on top of that. Phillips said in November that he was loaning his campaign about $2 million.

Phillips has rooted his long-shot bid in New Hampshire, where Biden is leaving his name off the ballot in the state’s unsanctioned primary on Jan. 23. It will be the Democrats’ first presidential nominating contest, though officials have said that no delegates will be awarded to the winner there since it is in violation of the national party’s rules. South Carolina will be the first state where delegates are awarded, a decision driven by Biden.

Phillips is badly trailing Biden in polls in New Hampshire, but Biden’s allies in the state aren’t leaving anything to chance. They have set up a super PAC and grassroots operation aimed at encouraging voters to write in Biden’s name in this month’s primary there.

Phillips launched his campaign in late October, and the campaign finance reports due at the end of this month — for the quarter covering the months of October, November and December — will be the first look at Phillips’ ability to attract donors and excite grassroots contributors. Candidates often voluntarily release their topline numbers early in an effort to get attention and support.

Still, the president’s fundraising has swamped Phillips’. Biden, the Democratic National Committee and their allied committees collected about $72 million in the second quarter and $71 million in the third quarter. Biden has not yet announced how much he raised in the year’s last quarter, though his campaign said that it brought in more than $1 million online in the 24 hours after his speech about the anniversary of Jan. 6.