Francis Suarez trumpets $13.6M fundraising, says he qualifies for presidential debate

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez may be lagging in early polls of the 2024 presidential race, but the Republican candidate says his fundraising is strong enough to meet the qualifications for the upcoming GOP debates.

Candidate must have more than 40,000 donors, as well as having at least 200 donors in at least 20 states.

Suarez says he has cleared those thresholds.

“I am extremely pleased to announce that my campaign, which only began a few days before the end of the reporting period, along with the reports made public today by PACs supporting our effort, have raised a total of over 13.6 million dollars. The campaign committee itself raised a million dollars in a very few days. Having just got started, we will meet the RNC limits for the first debate,” Suarez tweeted Friday.

The identity of the 40,000 donors needed to qualify for the debates is not clear based on the primary campaign account’s records from the Federal Elections Commission. Suarez has 363 donors as of the end of June, with more than 200 of them giving $3,300.

The supportive SOS America PAC has nearly $5.9 million on hand through the end of 2022, the last period for which records are available. The smallest donation of the 127 shown was $3,000 at that point.

Suarez still has a way to go to catch up with the two Florida men leading the GOP race, meanwhile.

Former President Donald Trump raised nearly $54 million in the first half of this year, while Gov. Ron DeSantis has raised $20 million in the six weeks he has been a declared candidate during Q2, with $130 million more in his Never Back Down political committee, with more than $80 million transferred from his state-level Friends of Ron DeSantis account that raised money for his gubernatorial runs.