Jeb Bush Raises $13.4 Million in Third Quarter

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush raised $13.4 million in the third quarter of 2015 and has more than $10 million in the bank, his campaign announced Thursday, among the largest hauls of the period.

Bush’s haul tops his more than $11.4 million raised in the three weeks after he announced his candidacy, but trails retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who reported raising more than $20 million in the third quarter on the back of strong grassroots fundraising. Bush’s numbers put him ahead of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who will report raising $12.2 million in the quarter and has $13.5 million on hand, as well as former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who will report raising $6.8 million, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio who will report raising about $6 million and having $11 million on hand.

In a memo to supporters, Bush campaign manager Danny Diaz wrote that the campaign’s best fundraising month of the quarter was September, noting Bush’s haul was $900,000 less than what former GOP nominee Mitt Romney took in in the same period in 2012, in far smaller field. Bush’s overall spending rate for the campaign has been about 60 percent.

Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, reported raising more than $100 million in July, and is in the midst of airing its first television ads boosting Bush in the early primary states. The group will not make its next finance report until January.

In the memo, Diaz highlighted the campaign’s substantial field operation, which has already made 1 million voter contacts, he said, and includes 37 staffers on the ground in the first four early voting states. He also touted the campaign’s analytics and data team, which is working to build profiles on each early state voter to determine their likelihood of voting for Bush and identify ways to target his message at them. “We are running thousands of simulated Election Days using the data we have collected in order to game out different scenarios and better allocate resources,” Diaz wrote.

In the memo, Diaz minimized his candidate’s position toward the back of the polls, noting that Iowa and New Hampshire voters in particular are notoriously late-deciding.

Bush’s campaign did not disclose its average contribution or the share of its donations brought it under the $200 reporting threshold. His campaign will file its finance report with the Federal Election Commission later Thursday.