Ron DeSantis pledges bureaucratic overhaul, border action
Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis pledges stiff federal response to drug smugglers on 'The Story.'
FIRST ON FOX – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis brought in an impressive $20 million in fundraising during the first six weeks of his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, his political team told Fox News on Thursday.
Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting the Florida governor's presidential run, in a separate announcement told Fox News that they've hauled in $130 million in fundraising since the committee launched in early March.
The figures from the DeSantis campaign and from Never Back Down illustrated the Florida governor's fundraising prowess as he aims to defeat front-runner and former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination next year.
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Florida Governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis walks alongside his wife, Casey DeSantis, and son, Mason, while marching in the Wolfeboro Independence Day Parade in New Hampshire on Tuesday, July 4, 2023. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News Digital)
Trump's team reported on Wednesday that the former president's campaign and Save America, his political action committee, together brought in over $35 million between April and June in the second quarter of political fundraising.
DeSantis raised the $20 million fundraising haul in less than half the time, beginning with his campaign launch in late May. Nearly half of the governor's haul - $8.2 million - came in the first 24 hours after DeSantis declared his candidacy, his team announced in late May.
The DeSantis campaign highlighted in a release shared first with Fox News that their haul was the "largest first-quarter filing from any non-incumbent Republican candidate in more than a decade."
And they added 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 $14.5 in Q1 2023)."
The Trump campaign and its allied fundraising committees brought in $9.5 million from the former president's mid-November launch through the end of last year and nearly $19 million during the January-March first quarter of fundraising.
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DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck argued in a statement that President Biden's "leftist policies are destroying the country, and Republicans are excited to invest in a winner ready to lead America’s revival."
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, speaks at a rally at Manchester Community College, on June 1, 2023 in Manchester, N.H. (Fox News )
"We are grateful for the investment so many Americans have made to get this country back on track. The fight to save it will be long and challenging, but we have built an operation to share the governor’s message and mobilize the millions of people who support it. We are ready to win," Peck said.
Never Back Down CEO Chris Jankowski spotlighted 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."
A significant portion of Never Back Down's fundraising - roughly $82 million - was money transferred to the super PAC in June from a Florida based political committee affiliated with the governor. The funds were originally raised to support DeSantis' 2022 gubernatorial re-election.
DeSantis is in second place in the latest 2024 GOP presidential nomination polls, trailing Trump by double digits but ahead of the rest of the large field of contenders.
Former President Donald Trump speaks to crowd during a campaign event on July 1, 2023 in Pickens, South Carolina. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Trump, who is making his third straight White House run, stands at 56% support in the latest Fox News national poll of likely GOP primary voters, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 22% and everybody else in the singe digits. Trump's lead has steadily expanded since the late winter.
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DeSantis and Trump are the first of the Republican presidential contenders to announce their second quarter fundraising. Candidates have until July 15 to file reports with the Federal Election Commission.
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