Sanders campaign says it raised $1 million in less than 4 hours

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) raised $1 million in the hours after he launched a 2020 bid for the White House, his campaign said on Tuesday.

The fundraising announcement came just 3 1/2 hours after Sanders announced that he was mounting a second bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

{mosads}The $1 million haul is made up of donations from people in all 50 states, his campaign said. The early number puts him on track to surpass the $1.5 million his campaign raised in the first 24 hours after announcing his first White House run in 2015.

Another 2020 contender, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), raked in the same amount — $1.5 million — in the 24 hours after announcing her candidacy last month.  

Sanders has built a reputation disavowing special interest and corporate money in politics.

During his 2016 bid for the Democratic nomination, the self-described democratic socialist often boasted that the average donation to his campaign was just $27, a figure he held up as a sign of his grass-roots fundraising power.

The Sanders campaign’s fundraising announcement on Tuesday could not be independently verified by The Hill. The campaign will be required to file its first fundraising report with the Federal Election Commission at the end of March.