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.
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