Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s (D-MI) campaign announced Wednesday that it raised $1.5 million in the first quarter of 2012 — her single best quarter ever — and has $7 million on hand.
The campaign is attributing this in part to a large pickup in donations in the wake of Republican former Congressman Pete Hoekstra’s controversial Super Bowl ad, which showed a Chinese-American actress speaking in broken English to “thank” Stabenow for borrowing so much money from China and weakening the American economy.
“Debbie Stabenow is on the side of Michigan’s middle class families, so groups like the drug companies and Big Oil are trying to replace her with someone who will work for them instead,” Stabenow spokesman Nate Byer said in a statement. “But when Hoekstra and out-of-state interest groups launched ridiculous negative attacks, people in Michigan responded forcefully with an outpouring of support that gave Debbie her best fundraising quarter ever.”
