Steve Bullock raises $26.8 million in third quarter for Montana Senate bid

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) raised $26.8 million in the third quarter of the year for his bid to unseat Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), making him the latest Democratic Senate candidate to set a fundraising record in his state. 

Bullock’s third quarter fundraising haul is more than three times the roughly $7.8 million he raised in the second quarter, and it represents a new high raised by a candidate in a statewide race in Montana in a single three-month period. 

His campaign said that 96 percent of donations over the course of the quarter were less than $200, with an average contribution size of $38.74. 

“Our campaign is powered by individuals, not corporations, because Governor Bullock is running to give Montana a Senator who puts us first — not out-of-state special interests,” Bullock’s campaign manager Megan Simpson said in a statement. 

Bullock is challenging Daines in one of the most competitive Senate races of the 2020 cycle, one that could help determine party control of the chamber. Recent polls suggest a tight race, with the two candidates separated by single digits, and political groups have spent more than $100 million in the contest.

Democrats need to pick up either three or four Republican-held Senate seats this year, depending on which party takes control of the White House, to win a majority in the chamber. Bullock’s massive quarter-over-quarter fundraising hauls all but guarantee he’ll have the resources to spend heavily in the final weeks leading up to Election Day.

Daines’s campaign has not yet said how much it raised in the third quarter of the year, though Bullock has pulled in more than the GOP senator in every quarter since he entered the race. In the second three-month period of the year, Daines raked in just more than $5 million.