John James is pulling in some epic levels of cash as he runs for the Republican nomination in Michigan to challenge Gary Peters for the Senate next year:
DC EXAMINER – Republican Michigan Senate candidate John James raised more than $3 million in the third quarter of 2019, his campaign said Tuesday, the largest third quarter off-year fundraising haul for a Senate campaign in Michigan in at least a decade.
The more than $3 million in the third quarter came from more than 30,000 donors, the campaign told the Washington Examiner. It has not yet calculated end-of-quarter cash on hand.
“The grassroots support for John James is extraordinarily high,” the campaign said.
James, 38, an Iraq veteran and businessman, seeks the Republican nomination to challenge first-term incumbent Democratic Sen. Gary Peters in 2020. He previously ran for Senate in 2018 and lost to Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow by 6.5%, better than other Republicans fared in recent cycles in Michigan.
James previously raised $1.5 million in the first three weeks of his 2020 Senate campaign, from his June 6 launch through the end of that month.
The Peters campaign has not yet announced its third-quarter fundraising haul, but he raised $ 2.4 million in quarter two, from April through June, and had $4.7 million in his campaign war chest at the end of June.
The Cook Political Report projects that the Michigan Senate seat will likely remain Democratic. But Republicans and the Trump campaign are expected to target the state in 2020, and James’ fundraising indicates that the race could be competitive.
Michigan is a tough state for Republicans to win and this is something James knows well. But pulling in this kind of cash from this many donors is quite impressive, especially in one quarter.
Of course we don’t know how many of those donors are out of state. But with over 30,000 of them, odds are that most of them are likely coming from within the state.
Let’s hope this is good sign for things to come in 2020. It’d be a huge win if we could take a Senate seat in Michigan.