Ron DeSantis Puts Dem Challengers In Tight Spot With Huge Fundraising Haul That Cements Lead
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) put his main Dem challenger for the governor’s race in 2022, Niki Fried, on notice with a massive fundraising haul. Fried is considered the front runner for the Dem nomination but even if you add her competition, Charlie Crist, DeSantis crushes them both.
Ron DeSantis raised more in June than what the committees for his potential Democratic opponents, Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried, raised for the past two months combined.
DeSantis now has a stunning $44 million war chest. $44 million cash on hand. Remember, his two Dem opponents will have to spend a lot to win the primary leaving their cash reserves depleted and their political brand bruised by negative attacks heading into the general.
The early numbers spell doom for the Dems as Fried has only $2.18 million on hand and Crist has around $1.2 million. Desantis, whether he runs in 2024 or not will be in a great position to help whoever is the GOP candidate win the always critical state of Florida and that is bad news for Kamala Harris or even Joe Biden if he actually runs again.
From Florida Politics:
Perhaps more significant, DeSantis’ money came courtesy of more than 3,500 different donations to the committee and from all over the country. More than 2,600 of those donations were for less than $100, showing a bounty of interest from small donors.
That said, small checks are small checks. The majority of the money, $3,027,500 of it, came from 93 checks for five-figure sums or greater.
The biggest lift came courtesy a $1.8 million check from the Republican Governors Association.
Daytona Beach restaurateur Gale Lemerand gave the largest donation from an individual, a whopping $500,000 given on June 30.
One individual, Naples real estate agent Brenda O’Loughlin, made a donation of $100,000 to the committee. Another three checks of the same amount came from the political committees Associated Industries of Florida, Florida Prosperity Fund and Health Option One.
In total, 27 checks came from political committees, constituting $862,000 in total donations.
The heightened activity of the committee also means greater expenses, and the organization for June also reported $321,746 in spending. That included $85,450 that went to Washington-based Eleventh Street Strategies for fundraising efforts and another $33,628 for the same purpose to HMB Strategies in Tallahassee.
Another $27,296 went toward processing credit card payments alone.
While that’s a lot of overhead for fundraising, it seems to have paid off exponentially.
The bottom line, the committee closed the month of June with $44,521,330 in cash on hand. That’s an amount that eclipses the monetary efforts of Democrats.
Nikki Fried’s first month fundraising trails Crist, DeSantis https://t.co/bdFffM55ts
— tbt* (@tbtnewspaper) July 6, 2021