McSally raises $3.4M, lags behind Dem challenger Kelly

Republican U.S. Sen. Martha McSally raised $3.4 million in the last quarter, a substantial sum that still lagged behind her likely Democratic opponent.

According to her quarterly filing with the Federal Election Commission, McSally, who was appointed in January to the seat formerly held by John McCain, has raised a total of $6.6 million for her campaign. She reported spending more than $1.1 million last quarter, and had nearly $4.4 million on has at of the end of June.

Despite having such a successful fundraising quarter, McSally still didn’t raise as much as Mark Kelly, the presumptive Democratic nominee for next year’s special election. Kelly announced in early July that he had raised $4.2 million in the second quarter of 2019, bringing his total fundraising haul for the year to $8.3 million. 

Kelly has nearly $6 million in the bank, according to his campaign.

Kelly’s latest report was not yet available on the FEC’s website as of Monday afternoon. Quarterly campaign finance reports were due by the end of the day.

The special election to fill out the last two years of the McCain’s term – he was elected in 2016 and died of brain cancer in August 2018 – is shaping up to be one of the hottest races of the 2020 election. 

Kelly is a retired astronaut, gun control activist and husband of former Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who resigned her seat in 2012 after being shot in the head during a 2011 assassination attempt. McSally, the first female fighter pilot in U.S. Air Force history and a three-term congresswoman from Tucson, was appointed to McCain’s seat after a temporary replacement, former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, resigned. 

Democrat Kyrsten Sinema defeated McSally in the 2018 race for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat.