Nikki Fried adds $313K to gubernatorial run, marking second lowest monthly total of the cycle

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried raised $312,000 toward her Democratic gubernatorial run in January, finding no new momentum after her fundraising efforts began slowing in late autumn.

Fried’s official election campaign reported accepting $171,502 in January. Her independent political committee, Florida Consumers First, picked up another $141,854 during the month. That’s according to the latest campaign finance reports posted by the Florida Division of Elections.

Her combined January haul of $313,356 was the second lowest total since she officially opened her campaign fund in June. In fact, Fried’s three driest months of contributions during her eight-month campaign have been the past three: November, December and January.

The latest month of contributions and expenditures provided her a combined cash-on-hand balance of about $3.6 million — just over $2.6 million in her political committee and $955,000 in her campaign fund — at the start of February.

That compares with $4.2 million for Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist as of Feb. 1. The third prominent Democrat in the August Democratic Primary Election, state Sen. Annette Taddeo, had about $705,000 to work with on Feb. 1.

None of them compares well with the man they want to challenge in the November General Election, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a presumed 2024 presidential contender who has been fundraising across the country early and often. In January, DeSantis raised $7.7 million. He came into February with $77.8 million cash in hand for his gubernatorial re-election bid this year.

It is nothing new for Fried to trail Crist in campaign fundraising or for her to stay well ahead of Taddeo. It has been that way from the start. In January, Fried dismissed fundraising metrics as the best measure of her campaign’s progress, saying she sees a different dynamic developing in grassroots support. She said, “We certainly are meeting all of our goals every single month.”

Yet those goals have been running about half of what Crist has been hauling in recent months. Every month, the St. Petersburg Congressman — a former Governor back when he was still a Republican — increases his financial advantage. In January, he raised $435,921 for his campaign fund and $277,765 for his political committee, for a total of $713,686 in fresh contributions.

In January, Fried’s campaign picked up 3,948 donations, including 43 four-figure checks.

Her political committee in January accepted a $25,000 check from the Embrace Equality committee of West Palm Beach; $25,000 in four checks from June Piscitelli of Fort Lauderdale; $10,000 from South Florida developer Torry Watson of Fort Lauderdale; and $10,000 from the Good Government committee of Miami.