Murphy Campaign Says It Brought in $3 Million in the 3rd Quarter

An official accounting of the numbers won’t be available from the Federal Election Commission for a couple of weeks, but Chris Murphy is wasting no time trumpeting his big third quarter fundraising haul.

His campaign says it raised $3 million during the period from July 1-Sept. 30. The money is crucial because he faces multi-millionaire self-funder Linda McMahon in the extremely competitive Connecticut Senate race.

“The incredible number of contributions that we received this quarter confirms the support that I have seen in communities across the state for a campaign focused on the issues that matter to Connecticut families,” Murphy said in a press release announcing the fundraising numbers. “I can’t write myself a check for $50 million, but I’ve got something much better: enthusiastic supporters that no candidate can buy.”

The Murphy campaign says it received 30,672 contributions during the third quarter, more than eight times the number of contributions received in the second quarter.  The average individual contribution was $79, the campaign said, and nearly a third of those contributions came in the last week of the quarter, a time when alarm bells were sounding among Democrats nationwide about the race and the chance that the party could lose a Senate seat in such a blue state.

Not mentioned in the press release is where the contributions came from — and how much cash Team Murphy has on hand as the campaign heads into the home stretch.