Bernie Sanders has almost caught up to Hillary Clinton’s fundraising machine

Like his two main Democratic rivals, O’Malley wants to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that ushered in an era of unlimited political donations, increase disclosure rules, and set up a public campaign financing system. In total, the Sanders campaign now has over $40 million, which gives the Vermont senator an opportunity to expand his message via TV ads before the first Democratic debate on October 13. He held just a handful of fundraising events all quarter, instead building his war chest through hundreds of thousands of online donations. First off, the campaign had to revise an earlier estimate because they raised an unexpected $2 million in just the last 24 hours.

Clinton asked an aide how to turn her phone’s ringer on, how to find local NPR radio stations and at one point complained about “fighting” with a White House telephone operator while trying to place a call. With more than $75 million raised over the past nine months, Clinton is on track to reach her campaign’s year-end goal of $100 million. Sixty percent of this quarter’s donors were women, about the same proportion as during the second quarter, far higher than is typical in the male-dominated world of campaign finance.

He stressed his opposition to the war in Iraq, a contrast with Clinton whose support for the invasion undermined her 2008 primary bid against Obama.

Bernie Sanders has been a vociferous critic of the presence of money in politics, and he has put his proverbial – and literal – money where his mouth is.

GOP presidential candidate Rand Paul, who used to poll toward the top of the pack, is now struggling to keep his campaign alive.

After Thursday’s quarterly fundraising deadline passed, the Sanders campaign told MSNBC it had raised million in the past three months.

Sanders has held only a handful of fundraisers, and supporters could get in with a $50 donation.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign revealed its third-quarter fundraising coming in at million, barely ahead of Sanders’ campaign’s haul. But many of her donors have already given the maximum ,700 to her campaign. That means more raucous crowds filling National Basketball Association arenas and fewer dinners with solicitous big-money donors. Clinton’s campaign has not said how many donors she had. During the same period, Clinton outdid Sanders, but her trajectory, as seen below, is pointed down.

With Sanders able to engage fully across all aspects of the campaign, who knowns how low Clinton’s numbers can go.