“Given the prodigious amount of money on the Republican side, the Democratic nominee absolutely has to overperform” among small donors, said David Axelrod, who advised Mr. Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns.
.. On the day that Mrs. Clinton sent out emails in April announcing her presidential bid, a campaign official said, many of the messages bounced back. Fewer than 100,000 of the 2.5 million email addresses collected during her 2008 campaign, it turned out, were still active.
.. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has responded with a new program, the Hillbuilder Initiative, intended to build a more robust online presence and harvest the grass-roots money and enthusiasm that can come with it.
.. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has taken in three times more money than any of her Democratic or Republican rivals, according to Federal Election Commission data filed by the 2016 candidates on Wednesday.
But super PACs and other outside groups set up by allies or former aides to the Republican candidates have dwarfed the top Democratic super PAC — as well as most of the Republican campaigns — collectively raising in excess of $200 million and startling some in Mrs. Clinton’s camp.