O’Rourke raises $3.6 million in second quarter

Beto O’Rourke raised $3.6 million for his presidential bid over the past three months, his campaign said Monday, signaling a significant slowdown in his fundraising since his campaign launch in March.

The second-quarter haul brings O’Rourke’s total amount raised since declaring his candidacy to more than $13 million, his campaign said. He received 119,888 contributions in the second quarter alone, with an average donation size of about $30.

The $3.6 million total puts him well behind the Democratic primary field’s top fundraisers. South Bend Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, for instance, raised $24.8 million in the second quarter, while former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) raised $21.5 million and $19.1 million respectively.

{mosads}The fundraising figure is indicative of O’Rourke’s waning momentum in the Democratic primary contest. He entered the race in March to significant excitement from many Democrats, raising more than $6 million in the first 24 hours after his campaign launch.

Since then, however, O’Rourke has seen his political fortunes stall with most public polls show him in the low single digits.

Still, O’Rourke has amassed the support of enough donors to qualify for the Democratic debates in the fall, which require candidates to collect contributions from at least 130,000 individuals and score 2 percent in four qualifying polls.

In an email to reporters on Monday night, Jen O’Malley Dillon, O’Rourke’s campaign manager, acknowledged that the campaign has work to do, but insisted that the candidate is still in a financially sound position. She did not say how much cash on hand the campaign would report to the Federal Election Commission.

“When you look at our fundraising in aggregate, we’re in a great position,” O’Malley Dillon wrote. “I won’t sugar coat it: we have work to do, but we have the resources we need to execute our strategy.”

O’Rourke’s campaign has until midnight to file its second-quarter financial report to the FEC.