TAMPA, Fla. — In the 19 hours after her floor speech at the Republican National Convention, Utah congressional candidate Mia Love raised more than $100,000.
The campaign kicked off a “money bomb” fundraising drive on Tuesday, and has so far raised almost $120,000. The vast majority of that sum poured in after Love’s Tuesday night speech.
The campaign rolled out the drive last week, in anticipation of Love’s primetime speaking spot, asking people to pledge money in advance. By Tuesday afternoon, when Love made an appearance on Megyn Kelly’s show on FOX News, they had raised $14,000.
The Fox hit, however, “started the momentum,” and fundraising picked up after that, said spokesman Brian Somers.
After Love took the stage, the results were tremendous.
The campaign has already raised the goal of the so-called “Love Bomb” four times, having reached the original goal of $50,000 in the hours after midnight on Wednesday morning, following Love’s speech. At press time, the campaign was a mere $7,000 away from the new $125,000 goal, and Somers said they would keep raising the target number “if we continue to see the kind of steady flow of donations that we’ve seen over the past day or so.”
The amount of money raised has been “quite a momentous thing,” Somers said, especially since the $14,000 figure had initially been the “best single online fundraising haul” for the Love campaign.
With her unique profile – she would be the first black Republican woman ever elected to Congress – Love is someone who could become a national GOP figure. Somers noted that money is coming “from all over the country. ”
They’ve also seen a “large surge of donations from inside the state,” although the campaign did not immediately have data available on the state-national split.
Love needs the money. Her opponent, Democratic incumbent Rep. Jim Matheson, started the race with a million-dollar war chest. Ahead of Love’s speech, House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC, made a $200,000 ad buy for a spot attacking her.