Raphael Warnock is ahead of Herschel Walker in fundraising

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., raised more than $13.6 million during the first quarter of this year, the senator’s campaign announced Thursday.

Combined with the $9.8 million Warnock brought in during the fourth quarter of last year, the campaign now boasts $25.6 million cash on hand. Warnock’s fundraising in January, February and March set a record for money raised by a U.S. Senate candidate in the first quarter of an election year.

“Georgians see Reverend Warnock fighting to lower costs for hardworking families, and they’re ready to send him back to the Senate,” campaign manager Quentin Fulks said. “From fighting to cap the cost of insulin and lower prices at the gas pump to pushing for student loan debt relief, Reverend Warnock’s commitment to serving the people of Georgia continues to drive the biggest grassroots fundraising effort in any Senate race this cycle.”

Warnock received contributions from 183,000 individual donors during the first quarter, with an average donation of $40.

Meanwhile, Republican frontrunner Herschel Walker’s campaign raised $5.5 million during the first quarter, one of the largest totals among GOP Senate candidates during the quarter, Walker’s campaign reported Friday.

The University of Georgia football legend raised $5.4 million during the fourth quarter of last year.

“Our team has traveled to every corner of Georgia shaking hands with voters and hearing about how they are fed up with Joe Biden and Raphael Warnock,” Walker said. “We can’t do this by ourselves, and Georgians are coming out in record numbers to join our team.”

Walker received more than 50,000 donations during the first quarter from all 50 states.

Fundraising by the other candidates in the race falls well below that of Warnock and Walker. Republican Latham Saddler, an Atlanta banking executive and former Navy SEAL officer, raised $651,000 during the first quarter, bringing his total for the campaign to nearly $4 million.

“When it comes to the serious, non-celebrity candidates in this race, our campaign has far outpaced the others and is the only one able to afford significant voter contact,” Saddler said Friday. “We are strongly positioned to emerge as the campaign that will take on Herschel Walker in the runoff.”

First-quarter reports from the campaigns of Republicans Gary Black, Kelvin King, Josh Clark, and Democrat Tamara Johnson-Shealey were not posted on the Federal Election Commission website as of Friday.

This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.