Patrick Murphy ended 2nd quarter with commanding money lead over Dems and Marco Rubio

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy ended the last quarter with more than $7.2 million in the bank, more than twice as much as all the other candidates combined — including incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who managed to start his re-election bid with about $2.2 million in campaign money.

Murphy’s campaign finance lead, as recently detailed by the Federal Election Commission, was dramatic over Rubio and all other remaining U.S. Senate candidates in Florida. The Jupiter Democrat has raised $10.1 million in contributions and had $7.2 million cash-on-hand at the end of June.

Rubio did not enter the race to seek re-election until June 22. His presidential campaign fund raised almost $50 million, but was virtually broke by the end of June, and no money was transferred to his Senate campaign.

Rubio reported having raised $2.2 million for his Senate run in the last nine days of June. 2015. With campaign start-up expenses the campaign had in June, that left Rubio with just over $2 million in his Senate campaign bank account at the end of June.

Rubio must get past Republican challenger Carlos Beruff first. Beruff has raised little money, just over $300,000 total, but has donated more than $4.2 million to his own campaign. He spent almost all of that, ending June with $125,000.

Murphy’s total heading toward the Aug. 30 Democratic U.S. Senate primary crushes the amounts of his rivals, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson of Windermere and Miami lawyer Pam Keith. Grayson had raised $2.7 million by the end of the second quarter of 2016 and had $484,000 cash-on-hand, while Keith had raised $203,000, and had $2,488 in the bank. Those numbers include loans.

Murphy’s advantages were across the board. In particular, he is doing well with political action committees, where his $1.58 million take so far is even more than Rubio had raised from PACs in his presidential campaign. Murphy’s committee benefactors have ranged from the New Cuba PAC to the Marijuana Policy Project PAC, and from the Moderate Democrats PAC to the OCEANS PAC, and included numerous union, banking, energy, health insurance, and health care PACs.