Texas Senate Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke raised nearly $40 million in the third quarter of 2018, amassing an unprecedented campaign war chest heading into the 2018 midterm elections.
O’Rourke thanked his supporters in a video on Twitter. The money, he said, “came from 802,836 unique contributions. It’s going to give us the resources we need to finish this campaign as strong as we possibly can.”
“We are doing something absolutely historic — not just ensuring that we have the resources to run and to win, but to make sure that our democracy is once again powered by people, and only people,” he said in the video.
You just raised a record-breaking $38.1 million in three months. From 802,836 contributions. No PACs, no special interests, no corporations. All people, all the time, everywhere, every single day. pic.twitter.com/IDMFNFwezB
— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) October 12, 2018
O’Rourke surpassed the previously set all-time record of $22 million raised by aspiring New York candidate Rick Lazio running against Hillary Clinton in 2000.
NEWS: O’Rourke announces an eye-popping $38.1 million raised in Q3, easily surpassing record for most raised in one quarter (set by Rick Lazio when he raised 22M in Q3 against Clinton in 2000) #TXSen
— Bridget Bowman (@bridgetbhc) October 12, 2018
O’Rourke is running against Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and has been the subject of intense national media attention. The aspiring Democratic candidate has seen a litany of fawning profiles about him in the nation’s premier publications despite lagging performance in the polls.
O’Rourke is currently lagging behind Cruz by nearly 7 points in the latest RealClearPolitics polling average. Data website Fivethirtyeight similarly gives Cruz a 77-percent chance of winning his race with a forecasted vote share for Cruz of 51.7 percent of the vote vs 46.8 percent for O’Rourke.