Grayson’s Campaign War Chest Dwarfs Opponents

U.S. Representative Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) has released his second-quarter fundraising totals.  He is maintaining a huge cash-on-hand lead, with twice as much money as all nine of his opponents combined.

With a single-quarter haul of $325,000, a total for the election cycle of over $3.5 million, and over $1.4 million in cash on hand, Grayson is well positioned to defeat the two independents on the November ballot, and whichever of his seven Republican opponents manages to limp out of the primary.

It was a depressing fundraising quarter for the Republicans.

• Much-touted candidate Dan Webster found that it is harder to raise money as an air conditioning contractor than as President of the Florida Senate.  Webster’s $241,000 in contributions was less than what Webster’s opponent Bruce O’Donowho raised in the previous quarter.  Webster even raised less than what 28-year-old Armando Gutierrez, the carpetbagger from Miami, raised during Gutierrez’s first quarter in the race.  (Gutierrez dropped out the day after he saw that Grayson raised $700,000+ in the same quarter.)

• O’Donowho’s contributions dropped from over $300,000 last quarter to less than $100,000 this quarter.  This forced O’Donowho to inflate his cash on hand massively with a $75,000 “loan” on June 30, which his campaign has already “repaid.”

• None of the other Republican candidates made it into six figures except for Todd Long, who raised $115,000.  “Fiscal conservatives” Kurt Kelly and Bruce O’Donowho somehow managed to spend more than they raised during the quarter.

Meanwhile, the Grayson campaign juggernaut rolled on.   Grayson’s number of individual contributors is approaching an amazing 50,000 people.  His campaign has hosted the top three online “moneybombs” put on by any candidate for Congress, anywhere in the country.  And Grayson has the money to continue to invest $100,000 a month in what the national Democratic Party has called the best field campaign in the country.

“This is what People Power looks like.  We needed 4000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, and we got over 7000.  Every knock on the door, every phone call, yields contributors, volunteers and votes.  This latest fundraising quarter shows that ordinary people will support someone who fights for them,” said campaign spokesman Sam Drzymala.  “That’s why we’re winning, and that’s why we will win.”