Bernie Sanders touts major milestone as campaign surpasses 5 million donors

The Bernie Sanders presidential campaign said Wednesday that it met its fundraising goal of 5 million individual donations, boasting of the number as "more contributions than any campaign has received at this point in a presidential election in the history of our country."

"What we are proving on this campaign is that one does not need to beg the wealthy and the powerful for campaign contributions in order to win elections," Sanders said in an email to supporters announcing the fundraising haul.

"I am proud to say that ours is the only campaign in this Democratic primary with more donations than Donald Trump," wrote Sanders.

Nina Turner, national co-chair of the Sanders campaign, celebrated the milestone on Twitter:

"So amazing," said activist and Sanders surrogate Shaun King.

The email, sent after the Dec. 31 Federal Election Commission deadline, did not mention the total amount taken in by the campaign in the fourth quarter but suggested that the fundraising record so far put Sanders on track to be the only hope of defeating President Donald Trump.

"Against Trump, I believe we will have 50 million individual contributions, at least," Sanders wrote. "And at $27 a piece, that would be more than $1 billion. It's absolutely obscene and outrageous that an election would cost that much money, but our campaign has proven we will be able to raise more than enough money to win."

The average donation to the Sanders campaign has been $18 so far. If that average continued into the fourth quarter of 2019, New York Times reporter Shane Goldmacher estimated that the Sanders campaign brought in $28.5 million in the last three months of the year.

Pete Buttigieg, who's also vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, announced Wednesday that his campaign brought in over $24.7 million in the final three months of 2019 and had over two million donations over the course of the year.

The now-former mayor of South Bend, Indiana has been hit by Sanders and rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) over his campaign's reliance on wealthy donors.

The Buttigieg campaign was also accused last month of carrying out a "cynical" gimmick to lower the average donation amount in the last quarter.