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 WASHINGTON — Donna Mae Litowitz, a Miami Beach retiree, likes Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont so much that three months ago she sent his presidential campaign $10,000. His campaign sent back all but $2,700 because it was more than he was allowed to take under federal election law, but she wishes he had kept it all. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 “I like what Sanders stands for, and he says what needs to be said,” said Ms. Litowitz, who gave money in 2008 to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. “And I don’t like Hillary Clinton.” 
 
 In an election dominated by million-dollar donations to “super PACs,” Ms. Litowitz qualifies in Mr. Sanders’s insurgent campaign as a big donor. Unlike almost all of the other major Democratic and Republican candidates this year, Mr. Sanders has refused to accept support from super PACs, relying instead on supporters like Ms. Litowitz as well as tens of thousands of small donors giving as little as $5 or $10. 
 
 The average donation, according to campaign officials, is $31.30. 
 
 The result is a campaign built on populist issues like income inequality that appears to be drawing even more rank-and-file support than Mr. Obama did in 2008, when he used a network of smaller donors to win the White House. 
 
 About a quarter of Mr. Obama’s donors over the course of that campaign gave a total of $200 or less, according to a study by the Campaign Finance Institute. While direct comparisons are difficult at this early stage in the 2016 race, Mr. Sanders’s small-dollar support appears significantly higher than Mr. Obama’s in 2008, and more than any other candidate this cycle. 
 
 Mr. Sanders has raised more money in gifts of $200 or less than any candidate, Democrat or Republican, an analysis of campaign finance reports shows. A huge chunk of his money — $11.4 million, or about 75 percent of all his contributions — has come from small donations routed through ActBlue, an online site that facilitates contributions to Democrats, records show. 
 
 The influx of support has helped Mr. Sanders build a formidable war chest, with his campaign raising $15.2 million as of the most recent filings with the Federal Election Commission in July. Campaign officials say he has raised millions more since then and will far surpass that total this quarter. That still puts him far behind Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raising juggernaut, but Mr. Sanders said in an interview that he was unbowed. 
 
 “We will be greatly outspent, yes, but we will raise enough money to wage a winning campaign,” he said. 
 
 Democratic strategists are beginning to take notice. 
 
 “His money is very impressive,” said Bill Burton, a former aide to Mr. Obama who helped found Priorities USA, a super PAC that is now supporting Mrs. Clinton’s bid for the Democratic nomination and has received donations of at least $1 million each from a number of big Democratic donors like Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, George Soros and Haim Saban. 
 
 But Mr. Sanders’s fund-raising strategy will test the prevailing notion in Washington that no candidate can successfully compete on the national stage without tapping into the many millions of dollars that have poured into super PACs since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010. 
 
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 Super PACs supporting Mrs. Clinton have already raised more than $20 million, records show; on the Republican side, two super PACs backing Jeb Bush raised about $108.5 million. 
 
 Yet when a Vermont legislator, Chris Pearson, offered to set up a super PAC to support the Sanders campaign, Mr. Sanders told him to “kill it,” Mr. Sanders said, because did not want to be beholden to “the millionaires and billionaires.” 
 
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 Mr. Sanders said that it was “a difficult decision” to opt out of such a powerful and quick way to raise money. In doing so, he said, “we’re giving up millions and millions of dollars, no doubt, but we will sink or swim based on what we get from the middle class of the country.” 
 
 Nor has Mr. Sanders held many of the kind of fund-raisers that presidential candidates traditionally devote much of their time to. He has held only five, and they have been more like political rallies, held at places like a Washington, D.C., brewery and a Seattle tavern, with a contribution of $100 or less sometimes required. 
 
 Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager for Mr. Sanders, said in an interview that “it’s absolutely possible to win without the super PACs.” 
 
 Mr. Weaver said that the campaign had been able to leverage the big turnouts seen at rallies — he estimated the combined crowds at three recent West Coast events at 70,000 — by following up by phone or email seeking donations. 
 
 “The fund-raising from our standpoint is going phenomenally,” Mr. Weaver said. “We’re way ahead of where we thought we would be.” 
 
 Even so, Mr. Sanders in the last quarter raised less than a third as much as Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign reported contributions of $47.5 million in the spring quarter. 
 
 But Mr. Sanders and his aides say they can blunt the effect of Mrs. Clinton’s financial advantage by running a more frugal campaign, even as they build campaign operations in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. 
 
 So far, the more-with-less approach is holding up. 
 
 In his filings to the election commission, Mr. Sanders reported spending only about $3 million — or less than 20 percent of the money he had raised. Mrs. Clinton, in comparison, reported spending at about twice that rate, or about $18.7 million — nearly 39 percent of her contributions — on things like catering at fund-raisers and slick media productions. (Her campaign asked for approval from the election commission this month to allow donors to pay for their own food, drinks and valet parking at some events.) 
 
 Mr. Sanders was left with $12.1 million in cash on hand at the end of June, and Mrs. Clinton had $28.9 million. 
 
 “When you know you’re not going to raise as much as your opponent, you have to make every dollar count,” Mr. Weaver said. ||||| David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and self-described "racial realist," says Donald Trump is the best Republican candidate for president because he "understands the real sentiment of America." 
 
 Duke, who unsuccessfully ran for president as a Democrat in 1988 and later served in the Louisiana House of Representatives, noted Trump's experience as a salesman and his "great sense" of what people want to buy. 
 
 "I praise the fact that he's come out on the immigration issue. I'm beginning to get the idea that he's a good salesman. That he's an entrepreneur and he has a good sense of what people want to hear what they want to buy," said Duke on his radio program last week after noting that he had previously been critical of Trump's run. 
 
 "And I think he realizes that his path to popularity toward power in the Republican Party is talking about the immigration issue. And he has really said some incredibly great things recently. So whatever his motivation, I don't give a damn. I really like the fact that he's speaking out on this greatest immediate threat to the American people." 
 
 Later in his show, Duke said his view on Trump was evolving. 
 
 "I've said from the beginning I think his campaign is good in the sense that it's bringing these issues to a discussion which we have to have in America. And he's continuing to move the envelope further and I think he understands the real sentiment of America." 
 
 Duke, who said he wasn't sure if Trump's proposals are sincere or are just a means to getting the nomination, spoke favorably of Trump's policy calling for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, saying it was the government's role. 
 
 After going on a rant about "Jewish domination" of the media, Duke said Trump is saying things few other Republicans say about immigration 
 
 "Trump, he's really going all out. He's saying what no other Republicans have said, few conservatives say. And he's also gone to point where he says it's not just illegal immigration, it's legal immigration," Duke said, adding Trump has also talked about companies are taking advantage of the H1B visa program. Duke added that he felt the big technology companies were headed by "Zios." 
 
 Duke said The Donald, while untrustworthy, was "the best of the lot" running. 
 
 "So this is a great opportunity," Duke said. "So although we can't trust him to do what he says, the other Republican candidates won't even say what he says. So he's certainly the best of the lot. And he's certainly somebody that we should get behind in terms, ya know, raising the image of this thing." ||||| "I would have gotten to him very quickly," the Republican presidential front-runner told TODAY's Matt Lauer in an exclusive interview Wednesday. "This man gets up and starts ranting and raving and screaming, and honestly being very disrespectful to all the other reporters." 
 
 WATCH: Jorge Ramos is kicked out of Donald Trump's press conference 
 
 "Sit down, you weren't called," a combative Trump said as the newsman tried to ask a question that the candidate saw as being out of turn. "Go back to Univision," Trump later added. Ramos was then escorted out of the room by security, but later returned to ask two questions. 
 
 Donald Trump spars with Univision reporter Jorge Ramos at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, on Monday. Scott Olson / Getty Images 
 
 On Wednesday morning, Ramos took to Twitter to respond to Trump. 
 
 I'm a reporter. My job is to ask questions. What's "totally out of line" is to eject a reporter from a press conference for asking questions — JORGE RAMOS (@jorgeramosnews) August 26, 2015 
 
 Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly has also been on the receiving end of some controversial comments by Trump, who continued to attack her on Twitter Monday after she returned from a 10-day vacation. He tweeted she was "off her game" and that her show would be better off without her, while retweeting comments criticizing her appearance and calling her a "bimbo." 
 
 I liked The Kelly File much better without @megynkelly. Perhaps she could take another eleven day unscheduled vacation! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2015 
 
 "@mstanish53: @realDonaldTrump @megynkelly The bimbo back in town . I hope not for long ." — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2015 
 
 Lauer asked Trump why he was letting Kelly get under his skin. 
 
 "I haven't,'' he said. "You tweet a few tweets, or retweets in this case, that's not getting under your skin. I personally am not a fan. I don't think she does a good job. I don't think she's a very good professional. I think frankly the show's better without her, but that's up to them and they can do whatever they want. I respect [Fox News chief] Roger Ailes, he can do whatever he wants. I don't care." ||||| The Joe Biden who has been reaching out to Democratic operatives and would-be donors for a potential 2016 bid isn’t quite the happy warrior of bygone days. 
 
 Mourning the loss of his eldest son Beau, who succumbed to a brain tumor three months ago, and under intense pressure from the presidential hype he’s helped stoke, Biden is more subdued, grayer and grimly on-task than usual — this while occupying political center stage for the first time since the promising opening days of his doomed 1988 campaign. 
 
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 For all the breathless reporting on Biden’s every move and meeting, he is, at core, a 72-year-old man presented with an unexpected, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity at one of the worst times of his life. 
 
 Several people Biden has talked to in the past month say he starts off conversations by conceding that “some days are better than others,” mixing recollections of Beau with logistical questions about mounting a state-by-state challenge to a vulnerable yet still formidable Hillary Clinton. 
 
 “He’s just not himself,” says a longtime friend of Biden’s. “He’s sort of all over the place. He’s engaged but not in that childlike, manic way he usually is. He’s taking it all in and soaking up information, but he’s hard to read. And Joe Biden isn’t usually that hard to read.” 
 
 That isn’t to say Biden won’t decide to run — he clearly sees Clinton’s struggles with her email scandal as an opportunity, and no politician in recent history has proven to be as resilient in the face of personal tragedy. 
 
 To the annoyance of the Clinton campaign, Biden’s allies have strategically leaked his modest, noncommittal doings to the media, which have given otherwise ho-hum confabs with Elizabeth Warren and President Barack Obama’s former counsel Bob Bauer bombshell treatment. (Warren, according to a person with knowledge of the interaction, offered her usual warning against bringing more Wall Street executives into the White House; the talk with Bauer, an old Biden friend who worked with him closely in the White House, was intended to be an informal, personal check-in session that was leaked against the wishes of the participants.) 
 
 But reports that the vice president has all but made up his mind to run are simply not true, according to a half-dozen people in his inner circle interviewed by POLITICO. “He’s not leaning one way or the other,” says one former aide who remains part of the extended Biden political family. 
 
 What he has done is accelerated the pace of his deliberations, making personal overtures to Democratic donors — though Clinton’s team has yet to suffer any significant defections. So far he’s attracted a handful of former Obama supporters who have gravitated to a “Draft Biden” startup, including veteran Florida operative Steve Schale and Jon Cooper, a Long Island businessman who was one of Obama’s top New York fundraisers. 
 
 But he’s behaved more like a staffer than a principal — sounding out potential supporters without striding into the race with a distinct message or specific policy challenge to Clinton. 
 
 “I don’t know what he’s going to do,” said Jim Kreindler, a 2008 Biden fundraiser who is encouraging the vice president to run. “Everybody knows it’s going to be hard to challenge Hillary for money. … But I think he knows that he needs to be positioned to jump in if she really stumbles.” 
 
 As he embarks on a fact-finding project most other candidates completed months ago, Biden’s greatest concern remains his family. He’s especially worried about his wife, Jill, who was hit hard by the death of 46-year-old Beau, who she raised after Biden’s first wife and infant daughter were killed in a car crash in 1972. 
 
 Beau urged his father to run for years, but Jill is deeply skeptical of another run, according to people close to Biden; she re-upped to teach a full-time load of five English classes at Northern Virginia Community College next semester, as first noted by Bloomberg News, not exactly the action of a woman who planned to hit the campaign trail. 
 
 Joe Biden wants to run — he always has. But that doesn’t mean he actually will, and those who have spoken with him say he seems far from making a decision. He’s playing the same wait-and-see game he’s played for the past 18 months, telling potential backers he’ll make a decision as late as early October. Since his 2012 reelection, Biden had opted for inaction over action — he opted not to create a leadership PAC for the 2014 midterms, he balked at forming a presidential super PAC, he didn’t seriously sound out donors until this summer. 
 
 On the other hand, his numbers are too good to ignore. Without even being in the race, he consistently polls in double digits — and narrowly bested Clinton in head-to-head matchups against top Republicans in the key swing states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Moreover, he’s regarded as much more trustworthy than the former secretary of state, enjoying a 20-point lead over Clinton in that metric among battleground state voters. 
 
 Obama, according to current and former West Wing officials, is more inclined to support Clinton’s candidacy. Despite her woes, he sees her as a more electable candidate and a more effective keeper of his policy legacy. He’s done everything but endorse her already, putting his vast fundraising network in the hands of Clinton’s super PAC allies. Two of Obama’s top White House aides, John Podesta and Jennifer Palmieri, are running Clinton’s campaign and report regularly to their old West Wing friends — including the president. 
 
 But Obama has told people around him to give the vice president “space” to make his decision, and urged his staff not to make Biden feel pressured not to run. 
 
 White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday that the president wouldn’t rule out making an endorsement in the primaries — and other West Wing officials told POLITICO that Obama has privately expressed a preference for Clinton as his successor, while keeping up the pretense of being undecided in public. (“I love ’em both,” Obama said on NBC’s “Today” show in February when asked who he would back.) 
 
 Clinton’s camp, hands full with the email controversy and a surprisingly stout challenge from independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, isn’t in a patient mood. Bill Clinton, according to a person who has spoken with the former president in the past couple of weeks, is “very agitated” by the possibility of a Biden candidacy and incensed at the press hype around a possible bid. 
 
 Hillary Clinton, Democrats in her orbit tell POLITICO, is less concerned — and several top Clinton campaign officials have told associates they think a Biden bid would energize what has been a fairly lackluster performance by the candidate thus far. 
 
 Either way, the Clinton campaign is monitoring Biden’s activities closely — and Biden’s small team is acutely sensitive to slights against him, and to the possibility that her operation — including Correct the Record and other Clinton-friendly outside groups — would push anti-Biden opposition research to reporters in order to dissuade the vice president from running. “They better not do that,” said a Biden confidant. “That would bring really out his Irish.” 
 
 People close to Clinton say their boss wouldn’t let them push negative information on Biden even if they wanted to — and it would backfire anyway, considering Biden’s tragic family circumstances. 
 
 Biden’s decision will ultimately come down to convincing his family that embarking on one last long-shot campaign is worth the emotional toll, those close to him say. His staff, small as it is, already seems to be on board: Chief of staff Steve Ricchetti, a onetime Clinton aide, has arranged many of Biden’s recent meetings, and longtime staffer Mike Donilon — who was close to Beau — has been the most enthusiastic proponent of a 2016 bid, according to Democrats with knowledge of the situation. 
 
 Hunter Biden, the vice president’s surviving son, is said to be generally supportive of his father’s wishes, whatever they might be, but not a cheerleader — Biden’s sister Val, long his closest political adviser, is equally ambivalent. Jill Biden will be a hard sell. 
 
 Many of Joe Biden’s friends and family — people who deeply love the man, even if they don’t share his unquenchable presidential ambitions — quietly hoped the vice president would never be forced to decide whether or not to run in 2016. 
 
 Beau Biden had been expected to survive into the fall, according to several people in the vice president’s orbit. Friends who wanted Biden to bow out gracefully prayed the ailing son would rally — and hoped his devoted father would be so focused on his recovery he wouldn’t have time to contemplate a campaign until it was too late. 
 
 But as has happened so often in Biden’s four decades in the public eye, fate intervened, cruelly. 
 
 Experimental treatments to slow the cancer failed, and the former National Guard major and Iraq War veteran — so upright he refused to wear his uniform in political ads — faded quickly. That left his grieving father, who could use Beau’s steadfast support now more than ever, alone to confront one of the most wrenching political decisions of his life. 
 
 “We do not know how long we’ve got here. We don’t know when fate will intervene,” Obama said at Beau Biden’s funeral — words that seem to apply to father as well as son. “We cannot discern God’s plan. What we do know is that with every minute that we’ve got, we can live our lives in a way that takes nothing for granted.” 
 
 Annie Karni contributed to this report. ||||| Single-Click Donating 
 
 Meet ActBlue Express Lane 
 
 5,869,981 Democratic donors have saved their payment information with us via an ActBlue Express account. 
 
 The best part? Express users can use their account to give to any candidate or organization on ActBlue. And with our ActBlue Express Lane toolset, you can build single-click automatic payment links for your fundraising emails. That means happier supporters and higher conversion rates. ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — The two returning Republican presidential candidates have struggled to keep their own donors interested. 
 
 FILE - In this Aug. 20, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks at the National Press Club in Washington. The two returning Republican presidential... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo taken Aug. 22, 2015, Republican presidential candidate, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks in Columbus, Ohio. The two returning Republican presidential candidates are struggling to keep... (Associated Press) 
 
 A majority of the 2012 donors to former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum who've given this time have defected to other candidates, according to an analysis by Crowdpac.com, a nonpartisan political research company. 
 
 The donor disloyalty is contributing to financial woes in both of their campaigns. Perry stopped paying most of his staffers, and much of Santorum's top staff left to start a super PAC, which is free of contribution limits. 
 
 As the only two members of a 17-person presidential field who competed in 2012, Perry and Santorum should have among the strongest, most up-to-date fundraising bases. Santorum won 11 primary states, lasting until April 2012 when Mitt Romney secured the nomination. Perry bowed out in January but was a strong early fundraiser. 
 
 But four years later, many of their donors have eyes for others: Perry counted 470 return supporters, while 557 went with other candidates. For Santorum, 257 of his past presidential contributors gave to him again, while 414 put their money elsewhere, the data show. 
 
 For its donor loyalty assessment, Crowdpac reviewed Federal Election Commission data on contributors to the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. The data included only named donors, typically those who give at least $200 per election cycle. The figures are current through the end of June. 
 
 For both Perry and Santorum, the most popular 2016 alternative is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who welcomed 380 of their previous contributors. One oddity: two 2012 Perry donors decided to support Santorum this time. 
 
 Perry's campaign raised just over $1 million and Santorum about $600,000 in the first month of their campaigns. By comparison, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush raised $11.4 million in the initial two weeks of his campaign, and Cruz raised $4.3 million in his opening week. 
 
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– No modern candidate can run a legit campaign without help from a super PAC with deep pockets, yes? The New York Times reports that Bernie Sanders is providing a real test of that accepted wisdom. He's managed to build a "formidable" sum of $15.2 million while eschewing super PACs, with the average donation to his campaign at $31.30. The vast majority of that total comes from small donations routed through the ActBlue website, which handles donations for Democrats. Sanders knows he will still be widely outspent, but thinks he'll have plenty of money to run a smart, frugal, and "winning" campaign. Some other political stories from the wires today: 'Not himself': A Politico story on Joe Biden quotes a longtime friend as saying that "he's just not himself" as he considers a run. "He’s sort of all over the place. He’s engaged but not in that child-like, manic way he usually is. He’s taking it all in and soaking up information, but he’s hard to read. And Joe Biden isn’t usually that hard to read.” 'Out of line': After his run-in with Univision reporter Jorge Ramos last night, Donald Trump tells Today.com that Ramos was "totally out of line" when he began calling out questions and deserved to be ejected. "I would have gotten to him very quickly." Ramos tweets that it was Trump who was out of line. Unwanted endorsement: Former KKK grand wizard David Duke has weighed in on the 2016 race, and he thinks Trump is the only candidate who "understands the real sentiment of America," reports BuzzFeed. Trouble for the Ricks: The AP reports that Rick Perry and Rick Santorum are having serious trouble keeping the donors who supported them in the last presidential race. Most of those 2012 donors have defected to other candidates.