DeSantis Raises IMMENSE $20 Million In Second Quarter Fundraising, Campaign Showing Signs Of Life Amid Slipping Poll Numbers

GOP presidential candidate and Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has managed to surpass expectations by bringing in a massive $20 million during his first six weeks of campaigning. The amount brought in is on top of the $130 million that the Never Back Down super PAC that supports the governor has managed to gather since the group formed in March.

Fox News was informed of the amount Thursday, painting a far better picture of DeSantis than many thought. As of lately, the Sunshine State governor has slowly been slipping in the polls and allowing the gap between him and President Donald Trump to widen, with the latest polls putting that gap at 50 percent between the two Republican politicians, per the DC Enquirer.

Trump himself also recently revealed his impressive fundraising number, having announced that in the second quarter, the New York mogul was able to raise a whopping $35 million on top of the $18.8 million that was raised in the first quarter, per the DC Enquirer. Besides the money raised, Trump has at times personally funded his campaign when it was needed. 

Nearly half of the money raised by DeSantis came in the first 24 hours, specifically $8.2 million. The team behind the governor touted how the amount raised was the “largest first-quarter filing from any non-incumbent Republican candidate in more than a decade.” The team also noted that it “bests the $18.3 million former president and quasi-incumbent Donald Trump’s campaign raised during his first two fundraising quarters as a candidate ($3.8 in Q4 2022 and $14.6 in Q1 2023).”

The CEO of the DeSantis super PAC, Chris Jankowski, said in a statement that the “$150,000,000 raised from across all 50 states between DeSantis for President and Never Back Down shows what a formidable movement is behind Governor DeSantis. The future of the Republican Party is Governor Ron DeSantis.”

It is important to note that of the $150 million in possession by the super PAC, roughly $82 million was transferred from Florida-based political committees that have ties to the governor which were intended for his gubernatorial re-election. 

The numbers shown by the DeSantis campaign are certainly impressive and can give extra power to the candidate who has been losing ground but the Sunshine State governor certainly has a lot more to do before he can hope to secure the nomination. Money can only carry him so far when his polling is dropping, so DeSantis will undoubtedly need to be pulling out all the stops, not just his wallet, if he hopes to beat out Trump.