Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has hauled in $8.2 million in fundraising within 24 hours of launching his 2024 presidential campaign, according to reports.
The blockbuster fundraising haul by DeSantis is a move by his campaign to exhibit strength.
The DeSantis campaign is hoping to showcase energy and enthusiasm for the Florida governor as he enters a GOP 2024 nomination race.
However, President Donald Trump is the clear front-runner in the latest polling.
The money raised by DeSantis tops the previous record held by Democrat President Joe Biden.
Biden hauled in $6.3 million during the first 24 hours after his campaign launch in 2019.
The DeSantis fundraising includes online contributions as well as funds brought in by bundlers gathered at a DeSantis donor summit in Miami, Florida on Thursday.
“This historic fundraising haul shows that grassroots Republicans across the country are uniting behind Governor DeSantis’ vision for our Great American Comeback,” campaign manager Generra Peck said in a statement.
“That’s an enormous haul for the first 24 hours and shows that there are thousands of donors big and small behind the governor,” Dan Eberhart, an oil drilling chief executive officer and a prominent Republican donor and bundler, told Fox News.
Eberhart, who’s supporting DeSantis, attended the Miami donor gathering.
DeSantis declared his candidacy for president on Wednesday in a campaign launch video.
That announcement followed an extremely rocky rollout by DeSantis in an appearance on Twitter with Elon Musk on Wednesday evening.
During the Twitter event, DeSantis officially announced his 2024 campaign.
The DeSantis campaign quickly described the severe glitches as a “break the internet” moment due to intense interest in the launch.
However, Trump and his allies argued the episode was an embarrassing flop.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump posted a video of a rocket crashing and exploding with the caption “Ron! 2024.”
In a statement, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said: “Ron DeSantis can’t run away from his disastrous, embarrassing, and low energy campaign announcement.”
Nevertheless, the DeSantis campaign touted that they had a fruitful night.
According to his campaign, DeSantis hauled in $1 million in online fundraising in the first hour after the governor declared his candidacy.
DeSantis was in Miami, Florida on Thursday, where he was huddling with top donors and bundlers.
“I think there are a bunch of donors waiting to get off the sidelines, waiting for DeSantis to enter,” Eberhart, who contributed $100,000 and raised half a million dollars for President Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, predicted.
“I expect there to be a coalescing of conservative donors around Ron DeSantis.”
Fundraising, along with polling, is a key metric used to measure a candidate’s popularity and strength.
The money raised by candidates can be used for travel, creating and running ads, data operations, and building up campaign staff and get-out-the-vote efforts.
READ MORE: Biden’s Latest Approval Rating Leaves CNN Host Stunned
