Biden leads Democrats in Nevada fundraising, but Trump leads everybody

CARSON CITY – While Joe Biden’s national campaign fundraising in 2019 lagged his top opponents for the Democratic presidential nomination, the former vice president finished the year outpacing the competition in Nevada, leading again in the last quarter of the year.

Overall for the October-through-December quarter, Biden ran second only to President Donald Trump in itemized campaign contributions from named Nevada donors, according to candidate financial reports filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission. Biden previously led all candidates in the second and third quarters.

In all, Nevada contributions to Biden and five other leading Democrats were three times what the president raised during the quarter. The margin was about the same for the April-to-December period. Those six Democrats do not include billionaire candidates Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, who are self-funding their campaigns.

Counting itemized individual contributions, Biden raised just more than $177,000 in Nevada during the last quarter of the year and about $817,000 from April to year’s end. Among other Democrats, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was second both for the quarter and for April through the year-end period with itemized contributions of almost $125,000 and $269,000 for the two respective periods.

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was third, with approximately $92,000 and $170,000 raised in the same time frames. Businessman Andrew Yang, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar rounded out the field; Yang raised roughly $88,500 for the quarter and $124,000 since April, and Warren for the same period collected $51,000 and $132,000, respectively.

Klobuchar totalled $20,000 for itemized contributions for the quarter and close to $36,000 since April.

But for those same periods, Trump raised nearly $188,000 for the quarter and $473,000 since April in itemized contributions from named Nevada donors. His fourth quarter numbers led all candidates.

Giving to the six Democrats for the quarter was nearly $553,000 and over $1.5 million since April.

Nationally among the six Democrats and Trump, Sanders in 2019 led all candidates in individual contributions, both itemized and unitemized, with $95.9 million. Buttigieg was second with $76.2 million; and Warren third with $71.1 million. Biden was fourth with $60.9 million; followed by Trump with $50.6 million, Yang with $31 million, and Klobuchar at $25.3 million.

Predictably, among Nevada’s cities, the population centers of Las Vegas, Henderson, Reno and Sparks saw the highest level of contributions. Overall, itemized contributions from Nevada individuals amounted to less than 1 percent of each candidate’s overall individual contributions, with the exception of Biden, whose Nevada numbers were 1.3 percent of his national total.

Counting the number of individual contributions from Nevadans, including repeating donations from the same person, Sanders led the field with more than 4,700 followed by Trump with approximately 2,400, Buttigieg with about 1,450, Yang and Biden with roughly 1,300 each, Warren with 837 and Klobuchar with 246.

Contact Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-0661. Follow @DentzerNews on Twitter.