Bernie Sanders raised more than $40 million in February to continue his fight for the Democratic nomination, even as Hillary Clinton stretched her lead at the front of the pack.
She was ahead of Mr Sanders in the polls in ten of the 11 states voting today, Super Tuesday. Only in his home state did the Vermont senator have a lead.
The Sanders campaign revealed yesterday that it had raised $36 million over the previous 28 days, and urged voters for help in reaching $40 million by midnight. The target — nearly half of what Mr Sanders has raised since his campaign began in April — was reached by 8pm.
Mrs Clinton’s camp did not release figures, but is unlikely to have matched that amount.
The money will sustain Mr Sanders’s push for the nomination in the months ahead, but he is under pressure to show that his message can connect with non-white voters — something he failed to accomplish in Nevada or South Carolina, both of which have large minority constituencies.
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He is far behind Mrs Clinton in amassing the necessary delegate support for the nomination. The former secretary of state already has backing from 544 of the 2,383 needed to win, largely from party bigwigs known as super-delegates. Mr Sanders has a mere 85 delegates.
According to a CNN poll released yesterday, 70 per cent of likely Democratic voters expect Mrs Clinton to be the nominee.
That gap is expected to widen after today’s contests, where 865 delegates will be awarded. Mrs Clinton leads by more than 20 percentage points in polls in Texas and Georgia, the states with the most delegates at play.
According to the FiveThirtyEight website, she has a greater than 99 per cent likelihood of winning in nearly all states. Only in Vermont is Mr Sanders expected to win.
About forty of Mr Sanders’s senate colleagues have also backed his rival. He serves in the chamber as an independent but caucuses with the Democrats.
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Mrs Clinton’s supporters believe that Mr Sanders is well liked, but that the former first lady is better qualified to lead the party. Some senators who are up for re-election may also fear that a 74-year-old socialist in the Democratic driving seat may jeopardise their own campaigns.
The gathering momentum behind Mrs Clinton has allowed her to look towards the general election: at campaign stops, she has trained her fire on Donald Trump, urging voters to reject “the demagoguery, the prejudice, the paranoia” that the Republican frontrunner represents. However, 70 per cent of Republican voters now expect the divisive billionaire to win the nomination, according to the CNN poll.