I don’t know how many of you saw it. But over the weekend Beto O’Rourke got asked about his first day fundraising haul and said something to effect that he declined to give exact numbers. That certainly made it sound like he’d come up significantly short. Hard to see how this wasn’t a clever way to lower expectations ahead of today’s eye-popping announcement. He raised more than any other Democratic presidential candidate on their first day, which is certainly impressive.
O’Rourke was ahead Sanders but only by a bit. The two of them together are way, way ahead of every other candidate. But it’s very important to remember that these numbers are heavily, heavily driven by the fact that both relatively recently ran what amounted to national campaigns in which they build insanely large and lucrative fundraising list. Yes, Beto ran in Texas. But in the nature of Ted Cruz’s inveterate sliminess, that amounted to a national race.
So impressive. But this is as much a matter of their fundraising lists from their last campaigns as it is strength in the current one.
Still, very impressive start for O’Rourke.
