Establishment-backed presidential candidates in both parties, facing stronger-than-expected challenges from insurgent campaigns, are rapidly losing one of their few remaining advantages in politics: money.
In the Republican and Democratic primaries alike, upstart candidates shunned by their parties' major donors are now financially competitive with -- and, in some cases, vastly outraising -- opponents who have spent months or even years wooing the big-name donors and fundraisers who have traditionally dominated the money race.
The shift is most striking in the Republican contest, where Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, reported raising by far the most cash, $20 million, in the three months that ended Sept. 30. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas raised $12 million, and Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard executive, raised almost $7 million. All of them increased or held steady their average weekly cash intake over the previous quarter.
By contrast, the two Republicans favored most by the party elite reported substantial declines in fundraising. Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, who raised $11.4 million in the first two weeks after his official campaign announcement in June, took in $13.4 million in the next three months, according to his campaign reports. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida raised $6 million, and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey $4.2 million. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a libertarian Republican, raised $2.5 million.
During the same period, two Republicans with strong ties to the party's donor elite -- Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and former Gov. Rick Perry of Texas -- were forced out of the race for lack of cash.
Their departures were a stark reminder of the dangers for candidates who rely heavily on super PACs. Outside groups have stockpiled tens of millions of dollars on behalf of establishment candidates such as Bush and Rubio, most of it destined to be spent on television advertising. But those groups cannot cover the candidates' core expenses, such as staff salaries, plane tickets, polling and office rent.
Cruz and Carson lead the Republican field in cash on hand, with $13.5 million for Cruz and $11.5 million for Carson, according to data released by their campaigns. Rubio and Bush trail slightly, with $11 million and $10.3 million.
Billionaire real estate mogul Donald J. Trump, subsidized by a seemingly endless wave of free news and television coverage, raised about $4 million, including $100,000 of in-kind donations to himself, and spent slightly more, ending with about $254,000 on hand. The numbers suggest that Trump is no longer a self-funding candidate, but rather is running his campaign like everyone else, with money from his supporters.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who secured commitments from many of the party's biggest donors before she even announced her candidacy, barely outraised Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-described socialist, bringing in half as much money a week as she had in the first months after she entered the race. Clinton raised $29.9 million in the third quarter, just ahead of Sanders' $26.2 million. Sanders raised more than three-quarters of his funds from donors giving less than $200 each, according to his disclosures, and fewer than 300 gave the maximum allowed contribution of $2,700.
"The narrative earlier this year about how money matters is being flushed," said Scott W. Reed, the senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Six out of 10 primary voters are supporting outsider candidates. A socialist raised $25 million in the same period a libertarian raised $2.5 million -- a 10-1 surprise fundraising advantage." The steady fundraising of outsider candidates, who have tapped into a network of smaller donors, suggests a financial paradigm shift in both parties, but particularly on the right, where candidates beloved by the Republicans' socially conservative and evangelical base have long struggled to muster the financial resources to sustain a long-term campaign for the nomination.
"I think we are in an unprecedented moment in the Republican Party," said Ed Martin, president of the Eagle Forum, a conservative grass-roots organization. "The conservative wing is ascendant and has figured out how to compete -- how to raise the money and build the infrastructure. And I think the establishment has run out of a little steam." But the shift also reflects insurgent candidates' successful exploitation of online and small-donor fundraising during a period when the dominance of Trump has sowed doubt and uncertainty among the Republican Party's donor class.
Clinton and Bush have kept up a grueling schedule of fundraisers, with Bush's campaign holding at least 58 events over 90 days that ended in September. Cruz's campaign, by contrast, said that 6,000 of his small contributors had pledged to make recurring donations every month -- providing enough cash flow, with no fundraising appearances necessary, to cover Cruz's expenses in the first four primary states, as well as in others where the campaign has set up operations.
"There is tremendous power among these donors," said John Pudner, a former campaign manager to Rep. Dave Brat of Virginia -- the conservative who unseated Eric Cantor, then the No. 2 Republican in the House, in 2014 -- who now heads a conservative group that looks to empower small donors. "I think they're realizing that they can be a counterbalance, particularly social conservatives."
The reliance on small donors does not always come without a cost. Carson has relied heavily on expensive direct mail and telemarketing consultants to raise money, spending prohibitive sums in the first months of his campaign. But Rubio and Bush both spent at an even higher rate than Carson -- $4 of every $5 each man raised -- in the three months that ended Sept. 30. Cruz raised most of his small-donor money online, according to figures provided by his campaign, suggesting a sustainable financial model for the months ahead.
Terry Giles, who was Carson's campaign manager and now advises super PACs supporting him, said Carson and other upstart candidates, including Sanders on the left, had benefited in their fundraising from public distaste over "establishment" politicians.
"Political endorsements mean nothing," Giles said. "If anything, they just turn people off. It's a whole new ballgame."
The insurgents' rise is likely to make their rivals even more dependent on super PACs and other groups, which have stockpiled huge amounts of cash outside the campaigns. While super PACs are not required to disclose updated fundraising totals until January, groups backing Rubio and Bush have reported raising at least $140 million in unlimited contributions. Rubio, reflecting his straitened finances, has relied for television advertising on a nonprofit group, Conservative Solutions, which does not disclose its donors.
Cruz is the only one of the candidates emphasizing their outsider status who has succeeded in the super PAC realm: Groups backing him have raised at least $38 million ($15 million of it from the Wilks family, who earned billions of dollars in the fracking boom and are staunch opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage). Carson is scrambling to catch up: Advisers to his super PAC held a donor gathering at a Texas ranch last weekend, and Giles said the group expected large financial commitments in the weeks ahead.
"You're going to see significant money coming to Carson's camp," Giles said.
Robert Borosage, a director of the Campaign for America's Future, a liberal advocacy group, said Sanders' ability to raise money by positioning himself as an outsider reminded him of President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, which received millions of dollars in small contributions.
Borosage said Sanders had "capitalized on the fervor of the anti-establishment movement." Noting that Sanders has renounced super PAC support, Borosage added that he "will never have as much money as Hillary, but what's clear is that he will have enough money to be competitive." Speaking to reporters Wednesday night, Bush said he had attended almost all of his campaign's fundraising events and that "hopefully," those efforts would yield "an amount that will be competitive." "I live by 'little strokes felled great oaks,'" Bush said, adopting an expression attributed to Benjamin Franklin. "You do the little things over and over again, and the cumulative effect of it changes the world. In my case, it's going to change the direction of the campaign."
.