DeSantis campaign raised $20 million in first six weeks of campaign

The DeSantis campaign announced on Thursday that it had raised $20 million since Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis officially entered the Republican presidential primary six weeks ago, a show of fundraising prowess as DeSantis tries to position himself as the main GOP rival to former President Donald Trump.

The fundraising figures, reported earlier by Fox News, were celebrated Thursday by DeSantis campaign officials as the “largest first-quarter filing from any non-incumbent Republican candidate in more than a decade.”

The DeSantis campaign framed the fundraising figures as a sign of momentum for his candidacy.

“We are grateful for the investment so many Americans have made to get this country back on track,” campaign manager Generra Peck said in a news release. “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.”

Never Back Down, a super PAC affiliated with DeSantis, also announced on Thursday that it had raised $130 million since launching in early March, adding to the resources behind DeSantis’ candidacy. That number includes $82.5 million that was transferred in June from a Florida political committee affiliated with DeSantis to the Never Back Down PAC.

The announcements follow reports Wednesday from the Trump campaign and his leadership political action committee, Save America, that they together raised $35 million during the second quarter of 2023, despite state and federal indictments of the former president. The second-quarter figures were more than double what the Trump campaign and Save America raised in the first quarter of 2023.

DeSantis, who is currently in second place in national polls of GOP voters, has lagged in recent weeks amid concerns about his public demeanor and hiccups with local groups in key primary states. DeSantis allies and officials, however, have voiced confidence that the campaign is trending in the right direction ahead of primary debates and early contests and remains the clearest alternative in the GOP field to the former president.