Ready for Hillary, Ready for Cash
Published at
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — There’s no candidate yet, but the Ready for Hillary super PAC is fundraising like it’s 2016.
The group is announcing Tuesday evening it has raised more than $4 million in 2013 from donations from 33,631 Americans.
While $4 million may not sound like that much in the new normal of billion-dollar campaigns, the group has capped donations at $25,000. It wants to make sure it doesn’t stretch high-dollar donors before there is an actual campaign while collecting a list of as many names as possible.
The amount is more than double the $1.25 million it raised during the first full quarter of active solicitations. The group says the average donation is $82.
They also brought in more than 25,000 new contributors during the second half of 2013, which they say is three and a half times the number of contributors from the first six months of the year. Ninety-eight percent of donations were less than $100, and almost 18,000 were for the all-important amount of $20.16, which was also the ticket price for many of the group’s fundraising events.
Ready for Hillary had donors from all 50 states as well as U.S. territories and donations from Americans living abroad.
In a release, Ready for Hillary Executive Director Adam Parkhomenko said the group had “exceeded our goals and are ahead of schedule in raising the funds necessary to build a grassroots army that can be activated the moment Hillary makes a decision.”
Parkhomenko called funds donated to the “unprecedented” movement are “immediately reinvested in list-building, digital advertising and on-the-ground organizing to make sure that if Hillary decides to jump in the race, she will have as many supporters as possible lined up from the beginning ready to help her win.”
Ready for Hillary was launched by a group of former campaign volunteers and low-level Clinton staff members in April of last year, but it has since been backed by Clinton confidantes and Democratic bold-faced names such as Democratic Party operative James Carville, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm. After its last reporting period, the group released a list of its donors. The list had more than 10,000 people who’d donated, but of the group of donors who gave more than $200 there were 20 people who also bundled campaign donations for President Obama in 2012.
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio