Andrew Yang, Democratic Longshot, Raised $1.7 Million In The First Quarter

Daily Beast

Andrew Yang, a previously little-known tech entrepreneur, has raised $1.7 million for his 2020 campaign during the first financial quarter of the year.

An aide to Yang said that 80,000 individual donors had given to the campaign for an average contribution of $17.92. That number is smaller than the average contribution for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) campaign, which has been the gold standard for small dollar giving, averaging around $20 per donation—albeit from a much larger pool of donors.

“An outsider candidate raising nearly $2m in two months in entirely small contributions is unheard of,” Campaign Manager Zach Graumann told The Daily Beast. “Andrew Yang has proven he can build an online fundraising army from scratch, the Yang Gang effect is real.”

The “Yang Gang,” refers to his active online support base who like his ideas about universal basic income and his concern about mass automation sparking unprecedented unemployment. Yang has encouraged fans of his to give $1 dollar in order to clear the 65,000 donor threshold set by the Democratic National Committee to make it onto the debate stage. And they’ve responded, not only getting him well beyond the threshold but also by stuffing his campaign coffers. The campaign told The Daily Beast that 99 percent of their donations were under $200.