Saturday, October 5, 2019

Andrew Yang raises $10 million for his campaign

SCREEN CAPTURE
Andrew Yang's run for president is surprising skeptics

Of all the candidates running for President of the US, Andrew Yang is the Rodney Dangerfield of the field. He gets no respect.


However, as he continues to inch up in the polls, it's getting harder for mainstream media to ignore the Chinese American tech entrepreneur from New York.

Yang announced Wednesday (Oct. 2) that over the last quarter, he raised $10 million for his presidential campaign — more than some of his better known rivals for the Democratic nomination and just shy of California's Sen. Kamala Harris, who has won three statewide elections in the nation’s biggest state.


“This grassroots fundraising total, with more than $6 million in the bank, ensures this campaign will have the funding to compete and outperform expectations through Super Tuesday and beyond,” Zach Graumann, Yang’s campaign manager, told the New York Times.


While the odds are still against Yang winning the Democrat's nomination to run for POTUS in 2020, his underdog campaign has affected the race towards the presidency in ways unforeseen by political pundits and his more politically seasoned rivals. In that way, he has already won.

The following chart shows that Yang is a hit on the Internet, indicative of the Yang Gang demograpphic: younger, college-educated, tech-savvy, who in their youthful rebellious nature, are open to taking a look at any candidate spurned by traditional, mainstream political machines.


Yang is one of the few candidates who has shown that his base is growing to the point where is on the cusp of breaking into the Top Five of Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris.

Whether or not Yang can maintain his momentum remains to be seen. His performances in the debates where he has pushed his promise of a Freedom Dividend, giving $1000 a month to every adult US citizen, has won him plenty of attention. 

Despite raising $10 million in the third quarter, Yang still faces an uphill battle in gaining the respect of mainstream media as depicted in these two graphics from MSNBC and CNN.



Yang will take part in the Oct. 15 debate that will feature 12 candidates who met the Democratic Party's requirements. Harris and Tulsi Gabbard, the other two AAPI candidates also qualified for the debate being moderated by CNN. Hopefully, the moderators won't be using the Republican talking points as the basis for their questions like they did in the lat time the network hosted the event last summer.

After being marginalized in the first debate in June, Yang has used the debates to introduce himself and his Freedom Dividend, the core of his platform, to a nationwide audience. In Sept. he made a headline-garnering announcement that his campaign would give $1000 a month for a year to 10 families.

The DNC has raised the bar for the November debate. Yang has already met the donor standard but has only met the standard 3% in two polls. Yang needs two more to qualify for the November debate. 

By the time of the November debate, it is expected that a number of presidential contenders will drop out of the race. If Yang can maintain his momentum, he won't be one of them.
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