January 28, 2018
U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, says he raised more than $2.4 million over the last three months — his biggest fundraising quarter since he launched his campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
The figure was accompanied by a spike in the number of individual contributions that his campaign received — from almost 33,000 in the third quarter to over 55,000 during the most recent period, he said in an interview.
“The fact it’s the most we’ve raised and that we are adding tens of thousands of more individual contributions shows that the interest in the campaign is only increasing,” O’Rourke said. “And the fact that most of that is Texans is really, really encouraging.”
O’Rourke revealed his fundraising haul ahead of the Wednesday deadline to disclose it and other figures to the Federal Election Commission. Cruz, who is seeking a second term, has not yet volunteered his numbers.
O’Rourke didn’t say how much cash on hand his campaign had as it entered 2018. Cruz has maintained a big advantage in that category, ending the third quarter with $6.4 million in the bank to O’Rourke’s $2.8 million.
Still, O’Rourke’s fourth-quarter haul, which is larger than each of Cruz’s quarterly totals since the race began, shows his fundraising is far from slowing down. He raised $2.1 million in the second quarter — more than Cruz — and $1.7 million over the next three months — less than Cruz.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2018/01/28/24m-haul-orourke-has-biggest-fundraising-quarter-yet/.
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