Senator Bernie Sanders announced on Sunday that he had raised $46.5 million in February, a sum that gives him a significant financial advantage over all of his rivals aside from the self-funding billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg as the number of states holding primaries expands widely in March, beginning on Tuesday.
The Sanders campaign, which was already running television ads in most of the states that will vote that day — Super Tuesday — said it had reserved ads in five states that will vote on March 10 (including Michigan and Washington) and four big-market states that cast their ballots on March 17 (Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio).
The $46.5 million haul is by far the largest of any 2020 candidate in any single month but not far from what Mr. Sanders raised four years ago in February in his campaign against Hillary Clinton, when he collected $43.5 million.
Sunday’s announcement came just hours after Mr. Sanders finished a distant second to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the South Carolina primary, the senator’s first loss of the nominating season. He previously finished in a virtual tie in Iowa then went on to win in New Hampshire and Nevada.
In this race, Mr. Sanders’s previous fund-raising high came in January, when he raised $25 million. The second best fund-raiser that month was Senator Elizabeth Warren, who raised $10.4 million; her campaign had set a public goal on Saturday of $29 million in February.
The Sanders campaign said on Sunday that it received 2.2 million donations in February, including 350,000 new donors. All told, the campaign has raised $167 million from 1.9 million individuals.
The average donation his campaign received in February was $21, slightly higher than it has been for most of the campaign. His highest total of the month came on Saturday, when he raised $4.5 million, the best fund-raising day since he entered the race a year ago.