Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has raised a stunning $9.5 million for her campaign since the start of the year, with many viewing her as a potential heir to Senator Sanders as leader of the party’s left flank. 

According to a filing with the Federal Election Commission, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign brought in $9,556,027 between January 1 and March 31 of this year. Her outfit spent a little over $5 million and currently has no debt. She has just more than $8 million in her campaign war chest as of the end of the quarter. 

The FEC filing shows that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez took no money from political action committees or corporations, and did not transfer any money to other campaigns or outside groups. All of the donations came from individuals. Her campaign manager, Oliver Hidalgo-Wohlleben, said on X that there were more than 266,000 individual contributors, with an average donation of $21. 

“AOC doesn’t take a dollar from lobbyists or corporate PACS. Our top donor professions are teachers and nurses. 64 percent were first time contributors,” he says. 

In recent weeks, she has been on a tour with Senator Sanders across the country with their “Fight Oligarchy” rallies. They have seen tens of thousands of people show up to their events in California, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah. 

While Mr. Sanders was speaking to Utahns at their rally on Sunday, someone in the crowd shouted “future president!” when the Vermonter was praising Ms. Ocasio-Cortez on stage, leading many in the arena to erupt in applause. 

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has always been a powerhouse grassroots fundraiser. Last year, she raised over $15 million for her own campaign while the average House member raised only $3.3 million. 

There was some consternation for years that she was not paying her so-called “dues” to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is the outside group responsible for electing Democrats to the House. Explaining her decision on X in 2020, she said that she could not in good conscience donate to the DCCC because they promised to blacklist any vendor or consulting group that worked to defeat an incumbent Democrat in a primary — as she did in 2018 when she took down the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. 

She said in 2020 that she’d rather give money straight to fellow House members rather than have it pass through the outside campaign arm, much to the chagrin of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, who took the caucus chairman post after Congressman Joe Crowley was beaten by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic primary. 

“I give quite a bit to fellow Dems — we’ve fundraised over $300,000 for others (more than my ‘dues’), w/ over 50 percent going to swing seats,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said at the time. “DCCC made clear that they will blacklist any org that helps progressive candidates like me … I can choose not to fund that kind of exclusion.”

Last year, however, she changed her tune and began paying her membership dues to the DCCC. A $260,000 check to the campaign operation in early 2024 marked the first time she cut a check to the group, and the number far exceeded what is usually expected of a rank-and-file House Democrat. 

A three-term backbencher like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez would be expected to pay anywhere from $165,000 to $190,000 for the entirety of a campaign cycle. Committee leaders and members of the Democratic caucus leadership team usually chip in between $300,000 and $600,000. 

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told the New York Times last year that it was the threat of Trumpism that led her to start supporting the DCCC campaign operation. The “terrorist attack” that was January 6, she said, required her to do more to elect House Democrats.