Instagram/Andrew Yang
Andrew Yang’s presidential run is quickly gaining traction as he builds a name for himself in the political field. The successful entrepreneur has a diverse platform with policies that range from funding autism research to providing a UBI for every American. His ideas are gaining so much notice that he’s already qualified for the Democratic debates.
Yang 2020
And in case you’re wondering, yes Andrew Yang has qualified to be in the Democratic debates. He actually qualified back on March 12, 2019. He announced the news on his website. He wrote, in part:
Holy cow—we did it! We reached 65,000 individual donors more than two months before the May 15th deadline! Not only did we raise 65,000 individual donations, we also raised over $750,000 in the last month. Incredible! Thank you so much for everything you did to make it happen. This all but assures that I will be in the DNC Primary Debates in June/July. We were at only 15,000 donors in February. We received 50,000 new donors in a month! Someone said to me that making the debates might be one of the greatest acts of political entrepreneurship in modern history. Given where we started, he might be right. We should reflect on how remarkable this achievement is. It wouldn’t have happened without you sharing this campaign with your friends each day.”
Then in April, he announced his first quarter fundraising numbers. His campaign raised more than $1.7 million in the first quarter with 99 percent coming from donations under $200. In total, he had more than 80,000 donors with an average donation of $17.92.
Our Q1 fundraising numbers. THANK YOU. This campaign has come so far. We are changing the conversation and we can do so much. There’s a new type of economy on the horizon 😁🇺🇸👍🏽
Interesting to note is that his donations jumped after mid-February. Yang shared that more than 95 percent of his donations came in after February 11. That’s a sign that his campaign is gaining attention and momentum.
The most recent addition to his campaign was a town hall on CNN on April 14 at 7 p.m. Eastern. This is two hours before the premiere of Game of Thrones, which led to some people combining watch parties. Yang, who is known for leaning into memes, shared the #YangofThrones tweets and events that were created. One of themes was “Robots are Coming” rather than “Winter is Coming.” This is in keeping with Yang’s theme about preparing for robot automation by providing a Universal Basic Income. Automation isn’t something that can be avoided, so he advocates preparing for it and the job losses that might result by offering a UBI to every citizen.
Here’s an example of the Game of Thrones twist for some of Yang’s CNN watch parties.
Yang 2020
It will be interesting to see what happens next with Yang’s campaign.