The manager of Democrat Chris Murphy’s victorious U.S. Senate campaign told supporters Thursday that Murphy raised nearly 45 percent of his $10.5 million through online, grass-roots organizations, while records show that Republican Linda McMahon loaned her losing camaign $7.1 million in the two weeks before the election.
Federal election records list three late loans McMahon made to her campaign, the last of which was a $2.5 million payment recorded on Halloween. Her total contributions and loans to her campaign exceed $47 million, bringing her total for the 2010 and 2012 races to more than $97 million.
Those numbers are likely to change when the campaigns file their post-election reports, but Kenny Curran, the manager of Murphy’s campaign, sent an email Thursday stressing Murphy’s reliance on small, grass-roots donations in his 12-percentage point win over McMahon:
“Our online, grassroots fundraising operation helped us to raise what we needed to raise in order to be competitive with Linda McMahon. We received $4.5 million dollars in contributions through the website, ActBlue, and from the support of organizations like DailyKos and MoveOn.org. That total represented 64,704 contributions at an average size of $69.58. Those numbers accounted for almost 45% of the total money raised by the campaign. That’s grassroots.
“All total, 78,405 individual contributions accounted for over $10.5 million for an average contribution of $133.90. Over 5,000 retirees contributed to the campaign and 2,000-plus individuals who were unemployed put their faith in Chris via their contribution.
“And we were good stewards of that money. At the end of the day, our campaign spent an average of $12.88 per vote — a tremendous ratio in a race where the other side spent almost $50 million.”