Clinton makes pre-Super Tuesday cash dash

ATLANTA — Hillary Clinton’s top bundlers and donors are reconciling themselves to a jarring new reality: The money advantage that they had long taken for granted is unlikely to last — and the campaign might even be outraised by Bernie Sanders’ over the rest of the primary season.
Now, with two weeks left before Super Tuesday and the prospect of an extended contest ahead, they’re girding for a suddenly crucial late-February fundraising sprint they hope will keep pace with Sanders’ blazing clip.

“They now know this is going to be a fight as prolonged as the Obama ’08 fight was,” said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a longtime Clinton ally and former Democratic National Committee chairman who’s helped with Clinton’s fundraising, echoing a theme that arose in conversations with more than a dozen people close to the Clinton finance operation. “It’s clear to me that this race will not be decided by who has the most money.

If Clinton can pull off a series of convincing victories — or at least not allow Sanders to collect headline-grabbing wins — in the March states, bundlers expect her own online fundraising to start picking up, on top of the campaign support they’re expecting in increased measure from the main pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, and a handful of advocacy groups and unions that have endorsed her. (The SEIU’s political arm, for example, reported spending $100,000 between Nevada and South Carolina on Sunday.)
That surge, they hope, would help their candidate maintain her cash-on-hand advantage over Sanders, who has had to spend heavily to build up his national campaign quickly.
Should Sanders start to roll up wins in March states, however, some Clinton allies worry that Clinton could start to run low on money as the campaign drags on, while her opponent’s coffers keep filling up.
“Now Sanders goes into South Carolina and March 1st restocked, while the Clinton camp has to figure out how to win those states frugally,” warned one former aide who stays in touch with the campaign team.
“Nothing raises more small-dollar contributions [than] seeing a guy delivering a victory speech week in and week out.”