Lenny Curry is the Two Million Dollar Man

The Jacksonville Daily Record reports today that Lenny Curry has passed a milestone — he has raised over $2.1M for his Jacksonville Mayoral Campaign, which started 8 months ago.

Marilyn Young writes that “Curry’s fundraising total topped $2.1 million on the heels of a huge January, which brought in $439,585.”

$329,500 of that total came from his Political Action Committee, Together for a Greater Jacksonville.

These numbers make Curry the fundraising leader. As Young notes, Curry was within $75,000 of the Brown totals as of last month. Brown did not report any contributions for January 1-16, and the report for the second half of the month is still a week away.

In the short term, at least, the Brown campaign has strategies to counter Curry’s fundraising advantage in terms of messaging. One of them was seen in the first Alvin Brown television ad of the reelection campaign, in which his ad was part of a 3 Pack with two other Democratic candidates from downstate. This technique did not escape the notice of the Curry campaign, which noted in a press release that the ad’s disclaimer linked Brown to Senator Jeff Clemens and State Representative Janet Cruz, “liberal legislators who stridently opposed the reelections” of Rick Scott and his Cabinet.

When contacted for comment, Curry spokesman Brian Hughes had this to say regarding his campaign’s fundraising momentum:

“As the families of Jacksonville face higher taxes and spikes in violent crime under Alvin Brown, they are engaging at every level of our campaign. They are volunteering to knock doors, putting out signs, and contributing financial support. In the last 3 days of the month alone, we raised almost $14,000 online and much of it in amounts less than $100. It’s an amazing groundswell of support and we are honored to have them join the team.”

That $14,000 number far exceeded a short term end of month $10,000 goal for campaign fundraising, one communicated via a series of emails to campaign supporters in the last few days of January.

We reached out to the Brown team for comment on the increasing fundraising disparity. Deputy Campaign Manager Fabien Levy said that “we have always had the funds necessary to run the campaign we planned and have no doubt we will raise all the money we’ll need to get out the message that Alvin is fighting for Jacksonville every day as mayor.”

The Brown Campaign’s numbers are slated to come out in the next few days, and the campaign is confident in its fundraising operations and success.