Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign said Thursday it raised $20 million during the Florida governor’s first six weeks in the race.
The sum is the largest first-quarter filing for a nonincumbent Republican candidate in more than a decade, the campaign said in a press release.
“We are grateful for the investment so many Americans have made to get this country back on track. The fight to save it will be long and challenging, but we have built an operation to share the governor’s message and mobilize the millions of people who support it. We are ready to win,” campaign manager Generra Peck said in a statement.
The pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down said it has raised $130 million since its launch in March.
Never Back Down CEO Chris Jankowski said in a statement to Fox News that the “$150,000,000 raised from across all 50 states between DeSantis for President and Never Back Down shows what a formidable movement is behind Governor DeSantis. The future of the Republican Party is Governor Ron DeSantis.”
Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump’s campaign and his political action committee, Save America, said they brought in more than $35 million during the second quarter, which spanned from April to June.
DeSantis’s team noted its own fundraising “bests the $18.3 million former president and quasi-incumbent Donald Trump’s campaign raised during his first two fundraising quarters as a candidate ($3.8 in Q4 2022 and $14.5 in Q1 2023).”
The Florida governor, who announced his candidacy on May 24, has consistently polled at second place behind Trump. The former president is currently leading the crowded Republican field with 53 percent support, followed by DeSantis at 20.9 percent, former vice president Mike Pence at 6.1 percent, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley at 3.6 percent, Senator Tim Scott at 3.3, former New Jersey governor Christie at 2.5 percent, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy at 2.4, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average.