The entrepreneur Andrew Yang announced Wednesday that his presidential campaign had raised $10 million in the third quarter of 2019, a significant sum for the political outsider who was almost entirely unknown when he began his long-shot bid for the Democratic nomination 20 months ago.
The $10 million raised from July to September is more than three times what Mr. Yang’s campaign raised during the previous quarter and almost double what the campaign brought in through June 30. The total is expected to land him in the top third of the 19-candidate field and signals that there is financial backing behind Mr. Yang’s steady if modest support in the polls.
Aides said Mr. Yang had received about 300,000 contributions from unique donors over the course of his campaign, but did not disclose how many individuals gave in the third quarter specifically. The average donation during the past three months was around $30, and 99 percent of the donations were $200 or less, Mr. Yang’s campaign said. Overall, it had $6.3 million cash on hand.
“Andrew Yang is the only contender showing exponential growth in the third quarter, more than tripling his fund-raising number from last quarter,” Zach Graumann, Mr. Yang’s campaign manager, said. “This grassroots fund-raising 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.”
The two leading candidates, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., have yet to release their third-quarter totals.
Mr. Yang, who has run companies but never held political office, has built his campaign around the idea of providing a universal basic income to every American adult. Mr. Yang believes that automation is responsible for job loss and broad feelings of economic insecurity that will only intensify in the years to come; he prescribes a basic income of $1,000 a month as one essential way to blunt the effect of what he says will be the “fourth industrial revolution.”
Though Mr. Yang began his campaign in earnest in February 2018, he has become more widely known over the last six months and has attracted a loyal and eclectic group of supporters known as the “Yang Gang.”
Data compiled by RealClearPolitics shows that Mr. Yang is drawing about 3.6 percent support in national polls on average, good enough for sixth place, behind Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Harris, and ahead of former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas and Mr. Booker.
His fund-raising efforts got a significant boost after the second Democratic debates in July, when he raised more than $1 million over a four-day span. That sudden influx of cash ultimately set the pace for the third quarter, helping make it his most successful fund-raising quarter to date.
The increase in cash flow has allowed the campaign to begin building out operations in early voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire and hire dozens of new staff members. And in a sign that the campaign is beginning to more closely resemble those of some of Mr. Yang’s more experienced rivals, aides sent out a flood of emails soliciting donations as the third-quarter fund-raising deadline approached.
Mr. Yang will be one of 12 candidates invited to the Democratic debate in Ohio later this month and is close to qualifying for the next debate in November.