--- title: Gary Johnson Raised More Than $2 Million in August description: In 15 days this month, Gary Johnson beat his entire fundraising amount from 2012. canonical: https://time.com/4454724/gary-johnson-august-fundraising/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-16T17:18:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T00:01:08.870Z article:section: Politics og:title: Gary Johnson Is Pulling In More Money Than Ever og:description: He raised more than $2.9 million so far in August og:url: https://time.com/4454724/gary-johnson-august-fundraising/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf83ef57b3e00f58d/6988a292ab6d77fa266aaea3/gary-johnson.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Libertarian Presidential Candidate Speaks At University Of Utah In Salt Lake City og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Gary Johnson Is Pulling In More Money Than Ever twitter:description: He raised more than $2.9 million so far in August twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf83ef57b3e00f58d/6988a292ab6d77fa266aaea3/gary-johnson.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Gary Johnson Is Pulling In More Money Than Ever  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 16, 2016 5:18 PM UTC  Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson talks to a crowd of supporters at a rally in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Aug. 6, 2016. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson talks to a crowd of supporters at a rally in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Aug. 6, 2016.George Frey—Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Aug 16, 2016 5:18 PM UTC Libertarian candidate [Gary Johnson](http://time.com/4348326/gary-johnson-libertarian-party-convention/?iid=sr-link2) may be trailing [Donald Trump](http://time.com/4395161/donald-trump-june-fundraising/?iid=sr-link1) and Hillary Clinton in fundraising, but his August numbers show a dramatic uptick in third party interest since he ran for president in 2012. According to a release by the campaign, Johnson raised more than $2.9 million online in the first two weeks of August. The haul came from 90,000 people contributing an average of $32. That’s a marked change from 2012, when Johnson ran as a Libertarian against Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. That year he raised just $356,406 in August, [Politico reports](http://www.politico.com/story/2012/09/gary-johnson-raises-over-350-000-081456), and he raised a total of $2,317,996 over the course of the campaign, [according to Center For Responsive Politics](https://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/candidate.php?id=N00033226). In 15 days this month, Johnson bested his entire fundraising amount from 2012. “The fact that we received more than 90,000 individual small contributions is overwhelming, and a major boost for the campaign,” Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico, said in a statement. One reason Americans may be about $2 million more open to Johnson this August is that he’s running against two historically unpopular major party candidates. In a recent [NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll](https://www.scribd.com/document/321277283/NBC-News-SurveyMonkey-Toplines-and-Methodology-8-8-8-14), 59% of respondents had unfavorable views of Clinton, and 64% of respondents had unfavorable views of Trump. (In the same poll, 11% of voters said that if the election were held today, they would vote for Johnson.) Now, Johnson’s team hopes the surge in fundraising will help him get on the debate stage with Clinton and Trump in the fall. The campaign’s fundraising statement said they “encouraged small contributions” to help bring Johnson’s polling average up to the 15% required to participate in the debates. A [Real Clear Politics poll average](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general%5Felection%5Ftrump%5Fvs%5Fclinton%5Fvs%5Fjohnson-5949.html) currently has Johnson at 8.5%. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4454724/gary-johnson-august-fundraising/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4454724/gary-johnson-august-fundraising/"},"headline":"Gary Johnson Is Pulling In More Money Than Ever","datePublished":"2016-08-16T17:18:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T00:01:08.870Z","description":"He raised more than $2.9 million so far in August","url":"https://time.com/4454724/gary-johnson-august-fundraising/","keywords":["Gary Johnson","2016 Election topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf83ef57b3e00f58d/6988a292ab6d77fa266aaea3/gary-johnson.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf83ef57b3e00f58d/6988a292ab6d77fa266aaea3/gary-johnson.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Libertarian Presidential Candidate Speaks At University Of Utah In Salt Lake City","caption":"Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson talks to a crowd of supporters at a rally in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Aug. 6, 2016.","creditText":"George Frey—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/gary-johnson/","name":"Gary Johnson"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4454724/gary-johnson-august-fundraising/","name":"Gary Johnson Is Pulling In More Money Than Ever"}}]}] ```