As Long As Carson Continues To Speak From The Heart, Never Apologizing For His Opinions--His Popularity And Fundraising Will Continue To Grow

Ben Carson joins the big leagues

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Ben Bullard

Presidential candidate and history-making neurosurgeon Ben Carson got his political start thanks to a ton of grass-roots enthusiasm. After his no-holds-barred 2013 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast — a speech that President Obama had to endure while sitting only inches from one of his strongest critics — Carson’s word-of-mouth popularity soared.

For a long time, that wave of ground-level popularity sustained Carson’s slowly germinating presidential campaign. Fundraising came largely through high-volume, low-dollar donations from regular folks who had bought in.

Then, Carson hit the GOP debate stage. And while his performance as an orator hasn’t exactly impressed the pundits, the tremendous national exposure the debates have brought him have helped to elevate his campaign fundraising power … big time.

However Carson fared in the debates, there’s no indication Carson’s grass-roots support has waned any. In fact, that very exposure has helped lift Carson’s personal fundraising effort as the Republican primary season matures and viable candidates begin to separate from the field.

Carson’s war chest, in fact, has swollen enough to make well-connected plutocrats like Hillary Clinton envious. In fact, about the only candidate from either party who wouldn’t envy Carson’s newfound fundraising prowess, at least with regular people, is the independently wealthy outlier — and polling leader — Donald Trump.

From Breitbart Friday:

GOP candidate Ben Carson’s campaign reported raising an impressive $20 million in the third Quarter reporting period.

… Given their relative positions in the polls, it isn’t surprising that Carson outraised [Rand] Paul [who had raised only $4 million in cash] by such a large amount. Carson’s total, however, was also almost as much as either Hillary Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) raised for the quarter. Considering the fact that Carson faces far more opponents than either of the Democrats, his number is especially noteworthy.

Although Jeb Bush’s Super PAC lapped all candidates with a massive $100 million haul in the second Quarter, his personal campaign raised just over $11 million. Jeb’s modest fundraising for his personal campaign in the second Quarter may have been a high-water mark, however, as over 80 percent of the donations came from supporters who had maxed out their contributions.

As you can probably tell from the allusion to the Jeb Bush Super PAC, Carson’s $20 million reflects individual donations, not mammoth corporate aggregation. But he isn’t exactly hurting, at the moment, in that department either.

“First came the grass-roots support,” The New York Times reportedlast month. “Now Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has quietly arrived near the front of the Republican presidential field, is scooping up $100,000 a night from wealthy donors in Texas and California — evidence that he is fast transforming from a novelty candidate into one to be taken seriously by rivals and party leaders alike.”

And Carson’s campaign spokesman, Doug Watts, told the Times his grassroots-reliant candidate fully expects to be able to compete with the sort of major outside fundraising that has propelled establishment candidates like Bush.

“We think we have enough money to compete with anyone, even $100 million super PACs, all the way through the [Republican] convention,” he said. “We’re not worried about money at all.”