Democratic Senate nominee Jon Ossoff said Wednesday he raised more than $3.45 million between April and June, with much of that sum coming in the three weeks since he won the primary to challenge Republican David Perdue.
Ossoff said he’ll report that he's collected at least $2.35 million since the June 9 primary, which he won outright over six other Democrats to avoid a runoff. The average contribution in the second quarter was roughly $20, he said.
The Democrat aims to keep pace with Perdue, a former Fortune 500 chief executive who reported in April he had amassed more than $9 million for his re-election bid. The GOP incumbent is set to release his latest fundraising details later this month.
Ossoff, an investigative journalist, has built a reputation as one of the party’s most successful fundraisers. He collected about $30 million during the 2017 special election for a suburban Atlanta congressional seat, a race he narrowly lost to Republican Karen Handel.
His aides said his latest haul doesn't include a $450,000 loan he made to his campaign in the final weeks of the primary to finance more ads and get-out-the-vote efforts, boosting his chances to avoid what would have been a grueling August runoff.
Democrats aiming to win a statewide seat for the first time since 2008 highlight recent polls that show President Donald Trump trailing Joe Biden in Georgia and a tight race between Ossoff and Perdue.
Ossoff has framed the Republican as a corrupt lackey of Trump bent on preserving the status quo, and attacked him for accepting contributions from corporate PACs, something he has refused to do.
Perdue has countered by painting Ossoff as too liberal for Georgia voters, and tied him to the “defund police” movement gaining traction in some parts of the country amid protests over racial justice and law enforcement policies.
In an online video call this week, Stacey Abrams highlighted Ossoff and the Rev. Raphael Warnock, the leading Democrat in Georgia’s other U.S. Senate race, as a “two for one deal” for a party desperate to erase a 53-47 deficit in the Senate.
“Together this is a ticket that can change the future of Georgia, and we’re not the only ones to see it,” she said, mentioning record-breaking Democratic turnout in last month’s primary and a nearly $500,000 advertisement buy from Trump's campaign.
“When is the last time a Republican presidential candidate had to advertise in Georgia at all, let alone in June?”
>>More: Record primary turnout fuels Georgia Dems' excitement about November
>>More: Georgia's Ossoff-Perdue race for Senate presents a striking contrast
>>More: Ossoff avoids runoff to win Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in Georgia
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