Beto O’Rourke announced Monday that in the first 24 hours of his presidential campaign, he had raised a staggering $6.1 million. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images 2020 Elections ‘He’s the real deal’: Beto’s jaw-dropping windfall quiets critics ‘Six million bucks overnight is impressive and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t understand the game,’ said one top Democratic donor.

CENTER LINE, Mich. — One great question surrounding Beto O’Rourke has been whether he could replicate the massive fundraising totals he mustered in the Texas Senate race last year.

On Monday, O’Rourke put any doubt to rest, announcing that in the first 24 hours of his campaign, he had raised a staggering $6.1 million.


In so doing, the Texas Democrat signaled that he’s in for a sustained campaign— with the fundraising capacity to last deep into the primary and compete with anyone in the race.

“Six million bucks overnight is impressive and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t understand the game,” said Kirk Wagar, a former top Barack Obama donor who is backing Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). “It’s not the same as when Jeb Bush did it, where he had everyone lined up when they all donated. This guy, as far as I know, didn’t make a bunch of calls. Didn’t have a bunch of people that were pounding people."

Standing in front of a strip mall coffee shop in a Detroit suburb, O’Rourke said Monday that he was building “the largest grassroots campaign this country has ever seen, funded completely by, powered completely by people, not PACs, not lobbyists, not corporations and not special interests.”

He said, “It’s one of the best ways to bring the country together, to make sure that we are listening to one another and not that entrenchment of wealth and power and privilege that has defined so much of our politics from before.”

Perhaps no other candidate’s first 24-hour fundraising total was as closely watched as that of O’Rourke, whose credibility as a national contender largely rested on the small-dollar donor fundraising list he developed as a Senate candidate. But O’Rourke, who raised more than $80 million in that campaign, was running against Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican loathed by Democrats — a different fundraising atmosphere from the large field of Democrats with whom he is now competing for money and support.

“He had to raise more than everyone to continue his momentum. He did. Otherwise, they would have said people gave against Ted Cruz, not for Beto,” said Michael O’Neil, a former Midwest finance director for the Obama campaign. “It is clear, donors were excited to invest in Beto.”

O’Rourke’s total crushed the first day hauls of many of his Democratic competitors and surpassed even that of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the fundraising pace-setter and a far better-known candidate who collected $6 million in the first 24 hours of his own campaign. In an email to supporters Monday, the Sanders campaign pointed to O’Rourke’s total and asked for help to “close the gap” before the first Federal Election Commission fundraising deadline.

“We’ve finally got a candidate, and he can raise money,” said Boyd Brown, a former South Carolina lawmaker and Democratic National Committee member who was part of a Draft Beto effort in his state. “It shows everybody what some of us knew: He’s the real deal. Right out of the gate, he’s just right back in the saddle as to what he was doing in Texas.”

O’Rourke’s fundraising announcement came as the former congressman continued a furious spate of campaigning across the Midwest, appearing in Detroit and its suburbs on Monday. After flying from Milwaukee to Detroit, the candidate drove a rented Dodge Grand Caravan to Cleveland on Monday afternoon before motoring on toward New Hampshire. He is expected to visit all 10 of the first-in-the-nation primary state’s counties over the course of one night and two days, ending Friday.

O’Rourke had demurred when asked last week about his first-day fundraising. On Monday, he said he declined to announce his results because he was campaigning in southeastern Iowa, “not a part of the country and of the state that is often visited.”

“I wanted the attention of our campaign and, frankly, the people who are following our campaign, to be on the people of Iowa.”

Asked Monday for the average size of his contributions — a traditional marker of small-dollar support — O’Rourke said he does not know. He added, “As I get more details on how those contributions came in and the number in which they came in, I’ll share that.”

However, he said he had received contributions from every state and that “I think this is a great sign that in the first 24 hours, this many people were able to come together.”

The cash windfall was no accident. O’Rourke began preparing for a robust online fundraising push even before he announced his run for president, alerting top supporters to be ready to solicit contributions from their lists. Once he announced his candidacy on Thursday, the campaign began aggressive texting, email and social media appeals. O’Rourke spent more than $157,000 on Facebook last week, running more than 2,300 — many of them soliciting donations, with the campaign telling donors that “what we raise in the first 24 hours will set the tone in the national conversation about the viability of our campaign.”

On Monday, he said he hopes the total “sends a message to everyone who’s out there, who’s looking for a different way” to run a campaign.

“I think this is a great sign that in the first 24 hours, this many people were able to come together,” he said.

O’Rourke’s campaign is still without a manager and was scrambling to staff up in early primary states. O’Rourke is expected to remain on the road campaigning before returning to his home in El Paso, Texas, for a March 30 rally.

Before last week, it was Sanders who had set the bar for first-day 2020 fundraising, raking in $6 million in the 24 hours after announcing his run for president. Harris’ launch had been the second-most lucrative, raising more than $1.5 million in her first day in the race.

Several of O’Rourke’s fellow Democrats, like Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, broke the $1 million threshold after about 48 hours, their campaigns said.

Caitlin Oprysko, Zach Montellaro and Scott Bland contributed to this report.