Inslee hits campaign donation milestone in wake of debate boost

Democratic presidential candidate Jay Inslee announced Monday that he’d had his best five days of fundraising since he launched his campaign, a high point his staff is attributing to last week’s primary debate and a growing public interest in the conversation on climate change.

The Washington governor, who is leading his campaign largely on a platform of immediate climate change action, raised just over $500,000 since the second Democratic primary debate he participated in last Thursday.

His campaign has also received contributions from 20,000 unique donors in that five-day time frame, officials said.

{mosads}“I think that a lot of the enthusiasm is coming from the climate community and climate advocates,” said Aisling Kerins, Inslee’s campaign manager.

“The governor put climate on the debate stage, made it clear there is a big difference between the candidates and I think people want to see him on the next debate stage.”

Inslee has not yet met the thresholds for the third debate, which is scheduled to be held in mid-September. He has to get donations from 130,000 unique donors in 20 or more states and make a 2 percent rating in multiple qualifying polls by August 28. Inslee is currently polling at less than 1 percent.

During the previous debate, Inslee took former Vice President Joe Biden to task for his climate action plan, which Inslee called “middling” and insufficient for the crisis at hand.

“Middle ground solutions like the vice president has proposed, or sort of middling, average-sized things are not going to save us. Too little, too late is not going to save us,” said Inslee.

Biden is currently the Democratic front-runner in national polls.

Kerins said the jump in donations for Inslee over the past five days signifies the importance of the climate issue for likely voters and their desire to see him continue to push the topic on the debate stage.

“He is the only candidate who is prioritizing climate in this way,” she said. “People want to see Gov. Inslee and his climate mission on the next debate stage.”