WASHINGTON, Oct 2 — Senator Bernie Sanders and Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced robust fundraising numbers yesterday as they battle a crowded field of candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

The Sanders campaign said the 78-year-old senator from Vermont raised US$25.3 million (RM106.1 million) in the third quarter of the year from 1.4 million donations.

Sanders raised US$18 million in the second quarter and a total of US$61.5 million since launching his bid for the Democratic White House nomination in February.

The Buttigieg campaign said the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, raised US$19.1 million during July through September from 580,000 unique donors.

Buttigieg raised US$24.9 million in the second quarter and a total of US$51 million since the beginning of the year.

The campaigns for frontrunners Joe Biden, 76, Barack Obama’s former vice president, and Elizabeth Warren, 70, the senator from Massachusetts, have not yet released their totals for the quarter.

The latest average of national polls by RealClear Politics has Biden leading the crowded field with 27.2 per cent, Warren at 23 per cent, Sanders at 17.8 per cent, Buttigieg at 5.4 per cent and California Senator Kamala Harris at 4.6 per cent.

The Harris campaign said it raised US$11.6 million in the third quarter, about the same amount as in the previous two quarters of the year.

Brad Parscale, President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, announced meanwhile that the Republican National Committee and Trump campaign had raised US$125 million combined during the third quarter.

"Huge fundraising haul this quarter. The @gop and @realDonaldTrump campaign brought in 125 million!!!” Parscale tweeted.

In a statement, the Sanders campaign noted that all of the funds raised during the quarter were "grassroots donations.”

"Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign, and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution,” Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said.

The Buttigieg campaign said it has the "resources to go the full distance, and to win, the 2020 nominating contests.”

The 19 Democrats in the field had until yesterday to be selected — on the basis of their polling and donor numbers — for the next Democratic debate to be held on October 15 at Otterbein University in Ohio.

The official list of the as many as 12 candidates allowed to take part in the debate has not been announced yet. — AFP