Republicans said it would be bad news for the otherwise-safe Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) if former gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi decided to run against her. So far, they seem to be right, and more so than observers expected.
Yesterday, his campaign announced Rossi raised over $600,000 in his first week as a candidate — a third of it from grassroots supporters online. He’s signed 2,500 people to his campaign list in the first week, and attracted 20,000 followers to his Facebook page (which his campaign says is the “third most of any US Senate candidate and nearly twice that of Senator Murray.”)
Republicans in Washington, it seems, are happy to see Rossi after all.
After months of speculation — and pressure from the national GOP — Rossi finally got in the race on April 26. Despite Democratic attempts to keep him out, Rossi entered the field already full of low-profile Republicans–one of whom carries an endorsement from Sarah Palin.
Initially, there was speculation that Rossi may have missed his window, waiting so long that he may have locked himself into yet another tea party primary pitting the establishment choice against the conservative insurgency. Rossi, some Republicans feared, may have turned himself into the next Charlie Crist.
That still might be the case. Clint Didier, the ex-NFL player who Palin endorsed a week before Rossi got in, has promised to stay in the primary no matter what. Not every Republican candidate agrees. Yesterday state Sen. Don Benton — one of the men who criticized Rossi’s timing — quit the race and gave Rossi his full endorsement, calling on Republicans to unite behind two-time failed gubernatorial nominee.
So the way Rossi’s first week as a candidate is going, he’s looking less like the next Crist than he does the next Bill Halter, silenced critics of his timing dramatic online fundraising numbers early on in his insurgent bid against Sen. Blanche Lincoln in the Arkansas Democratic primary. Halter raised hundreds of thousands in just days, thanks to his online supporters among the netroots.
While Rossi’s fundraising pace hasn’t reached that level, the online surge does prove that he’s got serious support in Washington, and that could definitely be bad news for Murray down the road.
Or, you know, right away. The TPM Poll Average of the race shows Murray leading a matchup with Rossi by a margin of 46.4-42.9. (All the polls in the average were taken before Rossi made his candidacy official; there hasn’t been any public polling in the race since).
