Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) raised more than $38 million in the third quarter of the year, a stunning number that would rival a strong presidential campaign.
O’Rourke said in a video posted to Twitter on Friday that the money came from more than 800,000 contributions. O’Rourke has pledged not to take money from PACs in his bid for U.S. Senate.
{mosads}“It’s going to give us the resources we need to finish this campaign as strong as we possibly can,” O’Rourke said. “We are doing something absolutely historic.”
O’Rourke’s haul is more than three times larger than the $12 million raised by his opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz (R), over the same three-month span.
Still, O’Rourke remains a distinct underdog against Cruz in a state in which no Democrat has won a statewide office since 1994.
Four recent polls, all conducted since the beginning of last week, show Cruz leading by the mid-to-high single digits. Three of those surveys — from Siena College, Quinnipiac and YouGov — show Cruz north of 50 percent.
O’Rourke, a star among Democrats hungry to take out Cruz, has not led in a single public poll during the race.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows Cruz with a 7-point lead.