The headlines surrounding the release of the 2nd quarter’s fundraising numbers weren’t about the 2nd quarter at all. As incumbents and challengers were rolling out their latest FEC reports, their successes (and failures) were overshadowed by another story. On July 9, Democrat Amy McGrath announced her candidacy to challenge Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. The next day, McGrath’s campaign said that it had raised $2.5 million in the first 24 hours. While this is probably not a single-day record for a U.S. Senate race, it got a lot of notice.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t any nuggets to come out of the 2nd quarter FEC reports. Here are some of the highlights.

  • Three challengers put $1 million in personal funds into their campaigns: Republicans Tommy Tuberville in Alabama and Manny Sethi in Tennessee, and Democrat Shannon Liss-Riordan in Massachusetts where she is challenging incumbent U.S. Sen. Ed Markey in the primary. The good news for Markey is that there is another candidate in the primary, and he has a war chest of just over $4 million.
  • Republican U.S. Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona is the only incumbent to be outraised by her challenger. She took in $3.4 million to $4.24 million for Democrat Mark Kelly.
  • Three incumbents – all Republicans – raised over $3 million this quarter, while another five incumbents raised over $2 million. Fourteen more incumbents brought in between $1 million and $2 million.
  • Among challengers, no one came close to Kelly’s $4.24 million, but nine candidates brought in more than $1 million each.
  • Among incumbents, Democratic U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey had the lowest receipts at $27, but then again all of his fundraising is focused on his presidential bid. Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho had the next lowest receipts at $289,609.

  • Among incumbents, GOP U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas has the biggest war chest at just over $9 million. McConnell is next with $7.9 million, followed by Republican U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina with $6.46 million.
  • Among challengers, Kelly again leads the pack with $5.94 million cash-on-hand. In fact, he has $1.6 million more in the bank than incumbent McSally does. Colorado Democrat Mike Johnston had the second highest cash-on-hand total among challengers with $2.63 million.
  • Seven more challengers finished the quarter with at least $1 million in the bank.
  • Only two incumbents finished the 2nd quarter with less than $1 million in the bank: Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi ($461,684) and Booker ($88,954).

The complete 2nd quarter FEC chart, including cycle-to-date receipts, can be found here.