Brown raises $3.4M in fight against Warren

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) raised $3.4 million in the first three months of 2012 and has stockpiled $15 million to fend off a challenge from Democrat Elizabeth Warren.

Brown raised more in the first quarter than he did in the previous quarter. He has also upped his cash on hand by more than $2 million, suggesting he spent less than what he raised since the start of the year. The campaign said seven in 10 donations were from within Massachusetts.

{mosads}”We will once again be out-raised by the Hollywood elites and out-of-state liberals that are backing our opponent, but we will have the resources we need to run our race,” said John Cook, Brown’s campaign finance director.

Warren hasn’t released her first-quarter totals yet, but out-raised Brown in the fourth quarter when she brought in $5.7 million — making her the top Senate performer of the cycle so far and cementing the notion that the Massachusetts Senate race will be one of the most expensive in the nation.

Warren released partial numbers on Wednesday, announcing she had raised $2.5 million in Massachusetts during the quarter and that more than 30,000 people in Massachusetts had donated since she started her campaign. The rest of the figures are due to the Federal Election Commission by April 15.

“Even our early fundraising numbers prove we’re running a true grassroots campaign on a size and scale we should be tremendously proud of,” campaign manager Mindy Myers wrote in an email to supporters.

Brown is fighting for his first full term in a seat he won in a special election in 2010 to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). Democrats are eager to win back a seat they acknowledge they should never have lost in a heavily Democratic state. But Brown has promoted his bipartisan bona fides and had a head start in fundraising before Warren entered the race.

The Hill rates this race as a toss-up.