Democratic House Candidates Are Seeing ‘Unprecedented’ Fundraising, Official Says

(Bloomberg) -- House Democratic candidates posted “unprecedented”’ fundraising numbers in the third quarter, with 60 Democrats raising more than $1 million each, the head of the party’s House campaign arm said Wednesday.

Representative Ben Ray Lujan said the money haul and polling make him “confident” that his party can win the 23 seats necessary to take control of the House from Republicans in Nov. 6 congressional elections.

“It shows you where there’s a lot of energy and momentum,” Lujan, a New Mexico Democrat and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said at a breakfast hosted by Bloomberg News in Washington. Thirty Democrats have raised more than $2 million each and eight have raised more than $3 million, he said.

Lujan declined to name all the candidates who’ve raised the money until third quarter fundraising totals are reported to the Federal Election Commission by Oct. 15. But two Democrats Amy McGrath, running in Kentucky’s 6th district against Representative Andy Barr, and Josh Harder, seeking to unseat GOP Representative Jeff Denham in California’s 10th District, have announced hauls of more than $3 million each in the quarter.

He also declined to predict how many total seats Democrats might gain in November, but said the party’s ability to field strong candidates across the country helped created a battlefield of more than 100 districts. The DCCC has invested at least $100,000 in 77 districts.

“I’ve been clear that I believe we’ll pick up the House,” he said. “I never said that it would be easy, I always said that it would be tough and that we’d have to fight for every seat.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Arit John in Washington at ajohn34@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk, Justin Blum

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