It apparently pays to lead the resistance.
Progressive lawmakers in Congress who have been among the most vocal in pushing back against President Donald Trump’s aggressive and controversial second-term agenda are seeing a surge in fundraising.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the longtime progressive champion, hauled in $11.5 million in the January-March first quarter of 2025 fundraising, according to Federal Election Commission filings this week.
The Vermont independent and two-time Democratic presidential primary runner-up also reports more than $19 million in his campaign coffers at the start of this month.
Sanders has been drawing tens of thousands of people to his ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ rallies across the country over the past six weeks. Co-headling those rallies is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another rock star on the political left.
The four-term Democrat from New York City raked in a massive $9.6 million the past three months. The record-breaking fundraising haul was one of the biggest ever for any House lawmaker.
Ocasio-Cortez’s team highlighted that the fundraising came from 266,000 individual donors, with an average contribution of just $21.
‘I cannot convey enough how grateful I am to the millions of people supporting us with your time, resources, & energy. Your support has allowed us to rally people together at record scale to organize their communities,’ Ocasio-Cortez emphasized in a social media post.
Another Democrat in Congress who has been very visible in leading the resistance to Trump is Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Murphy, who won re-election last November and doesn’t have to run again until 2030, hauled in $8 million over the past three months, his biggest quarterly fundraising ever.
‘The people are sending Democrats a message about the direction they would like to see,’ top Sanders advisor Faiz Shakir said in a social media post.
Longtime Democratic operative and strategist Joe Caiazzo, a veteran of the Sanders 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns, told Fox News that ‘there’s a direct correlation between fundraising and action… this is an indication of the yearning for action over inaction… that is what Democratic voters and Democratic activists want.’
And Caiazzo warned that ‘the stale ways of Washington have been rejected by the voters, and we need to understand that going into the next cycle.’
While not bringing in similar eye-popping numbers, House Republicans are touting their first-quarter fundraising, as they prepare to defend their razor-thin majority in the chamber in next year’s midterm elections.
Seven GOP lawmakers in competitive districts who are being targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee each raised seven figures over the past three months.
Leading the way was Rep. Mike Lawler of the 17th Congressional District of New York, who hauled in nearly $1.5 million during the first quarter. Lawler is mulling a statewide bid for New York governor in 2026. Also on the list are Reps. Juan Ciscomani of Arizona’s 6th District, Young Kim and Ken Calvert, of California’s 40th and 41st Districts, respectively, Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa’s 1st District, Jen Kiggans of Virginia’s 2nd District, and Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin’s 3rd District
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) highlighted that House GOP lawmakers in competitive districts enjoy a large fundraising advantage over Democrats in competitive seats.
And the NRCC emphasized that this is ‘a huge difference’ from the first fundraising quarter during the 2024 election cycle, when the Democrats held a campaign cash advantage.
‘House Republicans aren’t just winning the fundraising game against vulnerable Democrats – they’re running laps around them,’ NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella argued.