The Portman for Senate campaign announced last week that it raised $1.1 million in the first reporting period of 2016, the FEC pre-primary period covering Jan. 1 to Feb. 24. The campaign will also report nearly $13 million cash on hand. This follows the campaign’s record-setting total of $9.8 million raised in 2015, a record for an off-year in Ohio and the most of any targeted Senate campaign in 2015. To date, the campaign has nearly 10,000 Ohio donors representing 78% of its total donors.
“Our record-setting fundraising continues and it is a testament to the growing support behind Rob across all of Ohio’s 88 counties,” said campaign manager Corry Bliss. “Ohio families and workers are joining our team because Rob is getting results for Ohio and voters across the state know they simply can’t afford a return to Ted Strickland’s Ohio when the state lost over 350,000 jobs and ranked 48th in the country in job creation.”
In 2015, Portman for Senate campaign launched an aggressive volunteer grassroots program that recently surpassed 1,200,000 voter contacts through its door-to-door and phone programs. The campaign has launched five coalitions: the African American Leadership Council, the Veterans Leadership Council, Women for Portman, Sportsmen for Portman, and the Students for Portman Coalition which has college chairs on over 20 campuses across Ohio. Portman has now been endorsed by the Ohio Republican Party State Central Committee, over 500 key Ohio Republican leaders, including the entire Republican Congressional delegation, all statewide elected Republicans, nearly 90 percent of Republican members of the State House and Senate, and by over 15,000 grassroots leaders across the state. The campaign now has field offices in Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, and Dayton.
