Republican Maryland 7th Congressional District candidate Kim Klacik said during a Saturday appearance on Huckabee that her campaign raised close to $2 million after a campaign ad released earlier this month went viral.
“We’ve had over 200 people sign up to volunteer, you know, boots on the ground,” Klacik told former Republican Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. “And we’ve raised close to $2 million at this point.”
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Klacik is running to fill the Baltimore congressional seat left vacant by the death of Rep. Elijah Cummings in October 2019. Her opponent, Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume, won a special election in April with 73% of the vote according to WBAL-TV. Klacik was a candidate in the special election as well but garnered 27% of the vote.
Klacik won the Republican primary for the congressional district in early June, according to The New York Times. The June 2 primaries in Maryland saw a large number of ballots cast by mail which subsequently led to delays in tabulating the votes.
Her viral campaign video released Aug. 17 gained more than 4.4 million views on Twitter in less than a day, according to the New York Post. Huckabee said during the interview that the ad had received more than 10 million views on social media.
“This is the reality for black people every single day: crumbling infrastructure, abandoned homes, poverty and crime,” she says in the ad. “Baltimore has been run by the Democrat Party for 53 years. What is the result of their decades of leadership?”
Democrats don’t want you to see this.
They’re scared that I’m exposing what life is like in Democrat run cities.
That’s why I’m running for Congress
Because All Black Lives Matter
Baltimore Matters
And black people don’t have to vote Democrat
Help us win https://t.co/CSOjc9aQlS pic.twitter.com/XnEDTaDDIG— Kimberly Klacik (@kimKBaltimore) August 17, 2020
Klacik also told Huckabee her campaign had raised just $150,000 prior to the ad’s release.
“We’ve got to do better as Republicans, getting into the inner cities and not writing off some of these areas just because they vote [Democrat] down-ballot,” she added. (RELATED: Baltimore Congressional Candidate Kim Klacik Goes Into Detail On Her Viral Video)
Klacik is scheduled to speak Monday during the first night of the Republican National Convention, according to a Trump campaign announcement.