The super PAC supporting Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday it had raised $16 million in the first half of 2015.
The combined haul of the Conservative Solutions PAC and a linked political nonprofit group, the Conservative Solutions Project – which raised a separate $16 million – means Rubio has more than $30 million independently backing his bid for the White House.
“Things are setting up very well for the second half of the year, ensuring we’ll have the resources we need to share Marco’s conservative vision with voters,” said Warren Tompkins, a South Carolina strategist who heads the Rubio super PAC, in a statement. “Donors see what Hillary Clinton sees, that no one matches up better against her, no one is better positioned to defeat her, than Marco Rubio.”
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Rubio’s nonprofit group, which isn’t required to name its backers, has spent $3 million in ads praising his leadership on nuclear negotiations with Iran. The super PAC said it will show $15.95 million cash on hand in its filing with the Federal Elections Commission.
Super PACs and nonprofit groups, which cannot coordinate strategy or expenditures with the candidate, are expected to spend more on the 2016 race than the official campaigns. Rubio’s team has not released his fundraising totals, though supporters told The New York Times that they expected the campaign to announce having raised about $10 million by next week’s reporting deadline.
Other super PACs that have unveiled totals have similarly outpunched the campaign teams: The super PACs of Ted Cruz said Tuesday that they collected just under $38 million, while the campaign raked in $14 million. And businesswoman Carly Fiorina raised only half of what her allied super PAC did.
All super PACs are required to disclose their donors names and the size of their donations by the end of the month. The Conservative Solutions PAC’s fundraising numbers were first reported by Politico.
