U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton's campaign committee collected more than $1 million during the third quarter, leaving it with more than $4 million stockpiled for his 2020 re-election bid, the campaign announced Thursday.
At least $545,000 of the total was raised directly by Cotton for Senate, the Dardanelle Republican's authorized campaign committee, campaign manager Brian Colas said. Another $467,107 came from Cotton Victory, he added.
(Cotton Victory, the senator's joint fundraising committee, raises funds for Cotton for Senate as well as the Republican Majority Fund, his leadership PAC.)
In a written statement, Colas portrayed the totals as good news for the first-term incumbent.
"Senator Cotton is well-positioned to win thanks to the support of thousands of Arkansans," Colas said, adding, "Our campaign is ready to run on Senator Cotton's accomplishments like repealing the Obamacare mandate, building a strong military, and being a leader in the fight to stop illegal immigration."
Figures for Cotton's only declared Democratic challenger, Josh Mahony of Fayetteville, weren't available Thursday.
In a written statement, the challenger's campaign manager, Keith Rosendahl, said the numbers will be released "after we have a final tally and after we have filed our quarterly report with the Federal Election Commission by the October 15th deadline."
Mahony, who formally announced his candidacy on May 1, reported raising about $110,000 as of June 30, according to July FEC filings.
"Josh's campaign has gotten off to a fast start, and unlike Tom Cotton, Josh isn't relying on Washington lobbyists, special interests, and Wall Street to fund his campaign," Rosendahl wrote Thursday.
Mahony, the former chairman of the Fayetteville Airport Board, was part-owner, until last year, of one of his family's El Dorado-based companies.
In 2018, he unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Womack in the state's 3rd Congressional District. Running in a district that Republicans have held for more than half a century, he captured 32.6% of the vote, the best showing by a Democrat since 2006.
Cotton, a U.S. Army veteran and Harvard-educated attorney, served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives before unseating then-U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat, in 2014.
The filing period for office seekers in Arkansas is from Nov. 4-12. The party primary elections are March 3 and the general election is Nov. 3, 2020.
Metro on 10/04/2019