Ron Paul reports increased fourth-quarter donations

As long as we're blogging about Ron Paul these days, we ought to mention that this afternoon the folks at MSNBC's First Read reported that Paul raised more than $2.4 million today as part of a push to collect $12 million by Dec. 31.

By tonight, the Paul website was claiming to have raised more than $2.6 million online, shooting for a new one-day online record of more than $3 million. (The Paul website has a table, but getting to it was iffy this afternoon -- they reported bandwidth problems.) 

The Texas congressman reports being nearly halfway to the goal already, which means he has raised about as much in the last five weeks as he did in the entire three months ending Sept. 30.

Not bad, and it will put even more financial distance between him and Mike Huckabee, who is still getting more media bites.  So the key thing here is to see what Paul does with all this money -- and if it's enough to get him a little more broad-based traction and poll support.  In the Rasmussen daily polls, he hasn't cracked 3% nationally, compared with 12% for Huckabee and 11% for Mitt Romney.  Rudy Giuliani leads with 23%.

The Paulites make a lot of noise about their Internet campaign and grass-roots support, but that's an awful lot of ground to make up, especially when you look at polls in Iowa, the first state up on the primary-caucus calendar, and where Paul is scoring 1% support.  A light showing in the caucuses there could be politically fatal -- particularly since the Iowa caucuses are very responsive to strong grass-roots efforts.  And unforgiving of weak ones, despite the passion of his backers.

(UPDATE: Late tonight the Associated Press reported that Paul had raised about $4.2 million in 24 hours from over 22,000 donors to surpass the previous one-day GOP record of $3.1 million by Romney. Hillary Clinton holds the record of nearly $6.2 million on June 30.)

-- Scott Martelle

Comments

[Nash]

Paul is polling at 7.4% in New Hampshire and that was before his recent advertising blitz. That puts him ahead of both Fred Thompson and Huckabee who are at 4 and 3% respectively. In 1996 Pat Buchanan was polling at 11% the day before the New Hampshire primary and ended up winning with around 30% of the vote.

Paul will do better than expected in Iowa but I don't think anyone in the Paul camp expects a victory there. However, in New Hampshire, where 40% of the state is registered Independent and the registered Republicans are actually conservative, a win is not only possible but likely.

[David Ballantine]

It is about 10:25 pm MT here in Colorado, and Ron Paul's campaign has raised over $4 million today, by my calculations. This is an historic day, especially since Paul is thought of in the main stream media as an "under dog." I think he is catching more and more attention of America, and it is now safe to say he is a front runner in the race for the repulbican nomination for president. His message of pro-constitution and pro-freedom is invincible.

[Scott Frost]

The final 24 hour total was $3.99 million.

But it is not clear if there are off-line phone donations yet to be added in. Clearly, this is a one day online donation record.

It is likely that the campaign made over $4 million in one day. At 13:35 AM Eastern time, donations are still coming in. The Ron Paul total for November fifth and the 24 hours on either side of it, which takes into consideration time zone differences for Americans living overseas, will be much higher than $4 million. A lot of military personnel love Ron Paul.

It is also important to note that the average donation was just over $100, so these were not rich folks, like Clinton gets donations from. This was no "black tie" fundraiser. It also shows that most Ron Paul supporters are not even close to maxed out.

Keep an eye on Ron Paul. He is for real and all of his momentum is up.

[Brian...]

Keep in mind who gets polled... previously registered party voters who are likely to vote in the primary and have a land line telephone... so much of Dr. Ron Paul's base isn't even polled, but their showing up with 4.2 million in campaign contributions on the 5th of November cannot be ignored.

Well, I guess it can be ignored... but be wary of those that ignore it because they must have something to fear about a Congressman who actually supports the Constitution.

[Jesse M]

Ron Paul placed 5th in the Iowa Straw Poll of registered Republicans without heavily campaigning. In comparison, Fred Thompson was 7th, Giuliani 8th, and McCain 10th.

[Scott Frost]

Ron Paul's donations on November 5th came from relatively small individual donations averaging just over $100. I would be interested in seeing a breakdown of Hillary Clinton's $6.2 million in one day.

I am willing to bet that Clinton received a lot of $5,000 PAC contributions and $2,300 contributions from fat cat donors wanting favors from her. I'll bet many of her donors also donated to other candidates. Perhaps even candidates in the Republican party. That is not a measure of sincere support. But it is common practice. Ron Paul's campaign is different.

Ron Paul's money came from a grassroots effort. The Ron Paul campaign did not organize the fifth of November fundraising drive. They merely sat back and watched it happen. Everything about the other campaigns is top-down, centrally-controlled. The Ron Paul campaign is very decentralized and grassroots.

The other candidates don't have anywhere near a thousand Meetup groups with over 62,00 members, backing them like Ron Paul does.

The Ron Paul revolution is coming together spontaneously and that is a story that the mainstream media is missing.

The November 5th money bomb marked one year until the general election. I think Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination and be the next president of the United States.

Our country can only wander away from the principles that made it great for so long before it suffers, perhaps irreversibly. It is time to return to the Constitutional foundation of our country and to our principles of limited government and respect for individual liberty. We MUST reverse the creeping of authoritarianism that we have seen encroaching on our freedoms in recent years. The alternative to our Constitution is the very authoritarianism that so many people died hoping to protect us against.

If we lose our liberties, it will not be as the result of outside forces. It will be because we gave them away ourselves.

[Jon E.]

I have a lot of respect for Congressman Paul and his supporters. I am a supporter of Governor Huckabee, who has also seen a large upswing in donations and especially in polling numbers. Ceretainly these two candidates disagree on a number of issues. However, undeniably both speak from the heart, saying what they believe to be true not merely what they believe people want to hear. IMHO, this is the reason for their mutual success.