According to Federal Election Commission reports, Gianforte has raised more than $3.3 million from late January to early May.
Quist’s $5 million haul is a large sum for a House candidate but is shy of Georgia Democratic nominee Jon Ossoff’s unprecedented $8.3 million, though he has raised more since his pre-primary fundraising report. Ossoff looks to deliver an upset against GOP nominee Karen Handel in Georgia’s special election.
Item second paragraph:
Quist’s eye-popping fundraising haul includes more than 200,000 individual contributions the campaign said was raised in 85 days.
No breakdown of contributor numbers was given for either Gianforte in Montana, or Issoff in Georgia.
_____________UPDATE_____________
The cited amount Gianforte "raised" appears to include a million bucks he "loaned" his campaign; this link.
At a bet, many Montanans would think, if I had a discretionary million bucks, I might ego trip as a candidate for something. Or even spend it wisely. Charity for the destitute and homeless, or such.
___________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Behind and shamefully so with regard to "unity" tours or theme songs, talk being cheap, etc., this 5/18/2017 HuffPo link, this excerpt:
Still, the GOP is leaving little to chance as Trump’s popularity sinks lower every week. The top three outside spenders in the election — the Congressional Leadership Fund, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Republican National Committee — had collectively shelled out more than $4.7 million in independent expenditures as of May 17 to oppose Quist and advocate for Gianforte.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC, has led the spending with outlays of nearly $2.3 million. Some of the group’s most generous contributions in the last month, according to FEC data, have come from the American Action Network, a politically active nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors; RAI Services Co., a subsidiary of tobacco conglomerate Reynolds American; and Steven A. Cohen, the founder of Point72 Asset Management. Together they’ve given the super PAC almost $3 million in contributions.
Groups backing Quist have spent a fraction in comparison; the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has outspent the others at $340,000. Other PACs on Quist’s side are the Progressive Turnout Project and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which had made independent expenditures totaling just under $200,000 and about $120,000, respectively, through May 15.
Of the two candidates, Quist has been the more successful fundraiser — though not at first.
[links in original omitted]. The national Dem money machine pumped up Ossoff in Georgia, but is primarily MIA in Montana. Ossoff is a former congressional staffer, establishment type that way, and Quist backed Bernie in 2016.
Unity? Well, Ossoff has his funding sources, and the hope is he prevails in his runoff election. But with a progressive candidate being wholly ignored in Kansas and now largely so in Montana, by national money, progressives have to be careful in how limited stagnant-wage family resources are spent. Without in any way finding fault with Ossoff, he has his funding and no need for my contributing beyond an 'atta boy' for the effort and for gaining a substantial plurality in the first round but not the majority needed to avoid a runoff. While sincerely hoping he wins the runoff and adds a non-Republican vote in House organizing, it is a separate candidacy from democratic-socialism progressive orientation, by its own choice, and Clinton fundraising in 2016 proves corporatist money abounds.
DCCC in Montana did produce one voiceover negative TV ad against the Gianforte candidacy. https://youtu.be/VktOQQgXpmg
Coordinating between a PAC and a campaign is supposed to have a Chinese Wall and no comingling, so the Quist campaign had no connection to the item's production or content. While not appearing untrue, it is not affirmatively boosting Quist as a candidate of vision and merit, but rather is aimed otherwise. The ending footer of the item on YouTube, as run on TV by DCCC, strictly disavows any tie between DCCC and the Quist campaign, via "solely responsible ..." language. That is proper form. The suggestion is not that the ending footer disclaimer language is abnormal or improper. Just that the Chinese Wall requirement exists and was honored.
Quist is a candidate of vision and merit.