Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign raised more than $1 million on Friday, in part off an email charging that the Democratic National Committee tilted the scales toward Hillary Clinton after the DNC cut off Sanders from a crucial voter database, a campaign aide said Saturday.
“The reality is that the huge turnouts that we’ve had at our meetings, our strong fundraising, our volunteer base, and quick rise in the polls have caused the Democratic National Committee to place its thumb on the scales in support of Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” read the email. “You see that fact evidenced in their decision to bury the Democratic debates on weekends during nationally televised football games. It’s more or less an open secret.”
The fundraising email, penned by Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, went out to the campaign’s fundraising list Friday afternoon. It was sent hours after the DNC withheld the campaign’s access to its own voter data after revelations surfaced that the Sanders campaign seized on a glitch in a DNC database to spy on Clinton’s voter data. Sanders filed a federal lawsuit against the party, and the two sides announced a settlement in the wee hours of Saturday morning, with Sanders’ access restored.
In the lawsuit, the campaign argued it was losing $600,000 a day over an inability to conduct fundraising.
The aide told CNN the day was “absolutely” not the biggest one-day haul in the campaign’s history, though it was larger than most days. In the past, other standout days included the launch of Sanders’ campaign and the previous two Democratic debates, particularly when the campaign cited Sanders’ “damn emails” line at the first Democratic event in October.
Friday’s email was a flashpoint in a back-and-forth between the two campaigns. In a call with reporters on Friday night, Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said the entire situation, including the fundraising email, was “incredibly disappointing.”
“This is someone who said he was going to run a different kind of campaign,” Mook said. “Their staff stole data from our campaign and they are now fundraising off it.”