Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) saw a significant dip in fundraising in the last quarter of 2019 with a $21.2 million haul, falling behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and two other Democratic candidates.
Sanders routed Warren with a $34.5 million take, and South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg ($24.7 million) and former vice president Joe Biden ($22.7 million) also raised more money than Warren.
Warren was the only major Democratic presidential candidate whose fundraising dipped from the previous quarter. Her fundraising dropped nearly 14 percent from her third-quarter total of $24.6 million. Andrew Yang ($16.5 million) and Minnesota senator Amy Klobuchar ($11.4 million) trailed Warren's fourth-quarter numbers but still had the best quarters of their campaigns.
The disappointing haul mirrored the Warren campaign's stumbles heading into 2020. Since October, Warren has taken hits on both policy and personal fronts.
With her credibility already an issue after dubious claims of Native American heritage, Warren was on the defensive again when the Washington Free Beacon's reporting in October contradicted her claim she was fired from a teaching job in 1971 for being pregnant.
The Free Beacon also reported Warren's son attended one of the nation's most elite private schools, after Warren told a school-choice activist in November that her children had attended public schools. Warren has called for cutting federal funding for charter schools and banning for-profit charter schools.
Warren's long-awaited plan to enact single-payer health care led to criticism from Buttigieg and Biden for its $20.5 trillion price tag and removal of private health insurance options. When she amended her proposal to include a health care transition plan, she took criticism from the left.
Since then, Warren has phased out her discussion of Medicare for All on the campaign trail in spite of health care's significance as an issue to Democratic voters. Her polling and fundraising have stalled with the Iowa caucuses just a month away.