Inslee raises $3 million for presidential campaign in second quarter

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee raised more than $3 million for his presidential campaign during the second quarter, a haul that leaves him well below the top contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, led the field by raising $24.8 million during the quarter, which ran from April through June.

Former Vice President Joe Biden came in second, raising $21.5 million, followed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with $19.1 million, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, with $18 million. California Sen. Kamala Harris raised about $12 million.

Inslee did outraise some rivals, including the only other current governor in the race, Montana’s Steve Bullock, who reported raising about $2 million, and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who raised $1.1 million.

Among those who donated the legal maximum of $2,800 to Inslee for the primary over the past three months were: Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and the Squaxin Island, Nisqually and Jamestown S’Klallam Indian tribes, according to Inslee’s 4,000-plus page Federal Election Commission filing.

Overall, Inslee has raised about $5.3 million since announcing his climate-focused candidacy on March 1, with an average donation of just below $32.

His fundraising pace slowed in the second quarter, averaging about $33,000 a day, compared with the approximately $73,000 daily average during his first month in the race.

His campaign spent $3.3 million in the second quarter, leaving it with about $1.2 million cash on hand as of the end of June. The largest expenditures went to digital advertising, consulting and fundraising fees.

Inslee received his biggest surge of donations after the first Democratic presidential debate last month, pulling in about 12 percent of the second-quarter total in the five days following the debate, according to a campaign news release.

During the debate, Inslee struggled to get speaking time, but landed a big applause line by calling President Donald Trump “the biggest threat to the security of the United States.”

Inslee also saw an uptick in contributions after releasing a series of detailed policy papers on his aggressive plans to fight climate change and shift the U.S. economy rapidly away from dependence on fossil fuels, according to the campaign.

“More donors than ever are putting their trust behind Governor Inslee to hold this field of candidates to a higher standard on addressing climate change,” Inslee campaign manager Aisling Kerins said in a written statement.

Inslee qualified for the first debate last month by getting contributions from more than 65,000 donors and reaching 1 percent support in three early polls. Those numbers also are sufficient to get him into the second debate, scheduled for the end of July in Detroit.

But he’ll have to do better to reach the third debate in mid-September, according to the requirements laid out by the Democratic National Committee.

To get to that next round, Inslee will have to reach 130,000 individual donors and 2 percent support in four qualifying national or early-state polls by late August.

Inslee’s campaign said Monday that he’d attracted more than 85,000 individual donors as of the end of June. He has yet to get 2 percent support in any poll.

Act Now On Climate, a super PAC supporting Inslee, has reported spending about $1.6 million on his behalf. The group has not yet disclosed its donors, but must report them to the FEC by July 31.