DGA Announces Nearly $20 Million Raised In Third Quarter

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, Chair of the Democratic Governors Association, today announced that the organization raised $19.7 million in the third quarter of 2014 across all of its entities, the most successful fundraising period in the organization’s history. The record haul is double the $9.8 million that the organization raised in the third quarter of 2010, and brings this year’s total to $47 million.
“With three weeks until Election Day, Republican governors from Florida to Michigan to Maine remain seriously vulnerable,” said Governor Shumlin. “That’s because they’ve spent their four years in office rewarding the wealthy and powerful at the expense of middle-class families who need more and better jobs, world-class schools, and real economic security. Our record fundraising success ensures that we will have the resources to communicate that Democratic governors will always work in a bipartisan way to strengthen the middle class and expand economic opportunity to all.”
Traditionally, the Republican Governors Association outraises the DGA by a two-to-one margin. Given the ability of the DGA to compete financially this year, if not at parity, and the defensive map the GOP faces, Republican governors should be deeply concerned. Since the Tea Party wave of 2010—when Republicans were swept into office up and down the ballot—Democrats have won eight of the nine gubernatorial elections in which both the DGA and RGA have competed. In nearly all of those races, the RGA either matched or spent more than the DGA.
Those races include Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe’s victory last year in Virginia – a battleground state in which the electorate skews older, more Republican, and more conservative in off-years than in presidential years – much like the states holding elections in 2014.
Founded in 1983, the DGA is an independent political organization organized to support Democratic governors and candidates across the nation. As the only organization dedicated to electing Democratic governors and candidates, the DGA participates at all levels of campaigns, from providing strategic support to funding operations to helping candidates articulate and deliver their messages.

###