Martha McSally raises over $4 million in fourth quarter for Arizona Senate race

Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) raised more than $4 million in the final three months of 2019, her campaign said on Tuesday, giving her campaign its best fundraising haul of the year.

The fourth-quarter haul brings her total fundraising for the year to more than $12 million. She finished the quarter with $7.6 million in cash on hand, her campaign said. 

She received nearly 54,000 individual contributions over the course of the year, with an average donation size of $65.34, according to her campaign.

“Martha’s fundraising momentum shows that Arizonans are excited to send her back to the U.S. Senate this year,” Dylan Lefler, McSally’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

“Throughout the last year, liberals in Washington have spent millions on false attacks ads to try and defeat Martha,” he added. “Their efforts to distract have not prevailed, as her fundraising numbers continue to grow. Arizonans know she’s focused on what matters to them: lowering health care costs, securing our border, and improving veteran services.” 

McSally’s fundraising announcement came just after her chief Democratic opponent, Mark Kelly, revealed that he had raised nearly $6.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, outpacing McSally’s total by more than $2 million. 

McSally was appointed to fill the seat of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2018, weeks after she lost a hotly contested Senate race to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). She’ll face voters once again in November as she seeks her first full term in the chamber.

She’s likely to face a tough fight for her Senate seat, however. Kelly, a well-known former astronaut who is married to former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords (D), has consistently outraised her. And a poll from the Phoenix-based firm OH Predictive Insights showed Kelly narrowly leading McSally 47 percent to 44 percent in a head-to-head matchup.