Julian Castro warns his campaign will be ‘silenced for good’ if he doesn’t reach fundraising goal
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The end may be near for Julian Castro’s White House bid.
The long-shot Democratic presidential candidate said on Monday to end his campaign if he doesn't raise nearly $1 million by the end of the month.
NO BREAKOUT MOMENT FOR CASTRO AT DEBATE, BUT LONG-SHOT VOWS TO FIGHT ON
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The former San Antonio, Texas mayor who later served as Housing and Urban Development Secretary under President Barak Obama took to Twitter to highlight “this is a critical moment – if my campaign can’t raise $800,000 by October 31st, my campaign will be silenced for good. Help us keep up the fight.”
“If I don’t meet this deadline, I won’t have the resources to keep my campaign running,” the candidate added in an email to supporters.
Castro has struggled with fundraising since he jumped into the race 10 months ago. He brought in a modest $3.5 million in the July-September third quarter of fundraising. That was his best quarter — but the haul was far lower than the leaders in the 2020 campaign cash race. And he had less than $700,000 cash on hand at the start of this month.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}While he qualified for the September and October Democratic presidential primary debates, Castro faces an uphill climb to make the stage at the November showdown. He’s reached the fundraising criteria but is far short right now in hitting the polling threshold.
Castro's new pledge runs counter to what he told Fox News just last week.
Asked following the debate in Ohio if he’d continue even if he didn’t he make the stage at November’s showdown, Castro pledged "I’m going to keep fighting on. I believe that with hard work, we can make the next debate in Atlanta."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}With his new pitch, Castro seems to be taking a page from Sen. Cory Booker’s playbook. The Democratic presidential candidate from New Jersey last month warned that he couldn’t raise $1.7 million by the end of September, he would likely end his White House bid. Booker ended up bringing in more than $2.1 million in the last 10 days of the month, helping him to up his third-quarter haul to more than $6 million.
“I’ll be very blunt with you. Our appeal worked,” Booker told Fox News on Monday.
“People sent in from every single state, close to $50,000 contributors. We need to sustain that. I will not be able to compete and win if people are not going to CoryBooker.com and saying ‘you know what, this guy, I want him in the race. Here’s $5, $20, whatever. So we’ve got to sustain it. This quarter, we’ve got to do better than we did last quarter or else we can’t get more organizers on the ground,” he said.