I did say this would be the next story, didn’t I?
Beto O’Rourke raised $2 million in the first 24 hours of his run for governor, his campaign tells The Texas Tribune.
His campaign called it a record “for any Democratic gubernatorial candidate for the first 24 hours” of a campaign. They also said it was the most raised in the “first 24 hours of any campaign in 2021.”
O’Rourke is a fundraising powerhouse, though he faces an even more formidable fundraiser in Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. He had $55 million cash on hand at the end of June.
O’Rourke’s fundraising total for his first 24 hours was $2,015,885, his campaign said. The haul came from more than 20,000 donors.
O’Rourke has been on the road since launching his campaign Monday morning, making stops in Fort Stockton, San Antonio and Laredo. He is scheduled to visit the Rio Grande Valley on Wednesday.
See here for the background. To be sure, this would have been a story had he fallen short of expectations, too. This way is definitely better. That said, all Beto needs to do is the same thing each day for the next four weeks, and then he’ll be caught up to where Abbott was as of July. Yeah, I know, he doesn’t need to actually match Abbott dollar for dollar – he’s already well known, he’s got plenty of volunteer and activist energy behind him, there are tons of things to talk about, and at some point marginal dollars aren’t worth all that much. But there’s no way around it, he’s going to need tons of money. This is why a lot of people wanted him to start sooner, but Beto’s gonna Beto. At least he’s off to a flying start.
On a side note, there has been a lot of stuff written about Beto and his campaign, his abysmal Presidential campaign, his past and present stances, why 2022 and Greg Abbott are not 2018 and Ted Cruz (gee, ya think?), and so on and so forth. I’m going to try to be judicious about what I read, let alone what I link to, especially now when there’s a lot of other campaign news of interest. Don’t worry, there will be plenty more to say about Beto and this race going forward.