The second-quarter financial reports for the candidates in next year’s U.S. Senate election in Ohio provide an interesting early snapshot.

First, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, the lone Democrat seeking the office and the presumptive nominee, showed he can more than hold his own with Republicans in raising money.

Ryan’s ability to raise money for federal campaigns — he’s serving his 10th two-year term in the House and had a short-lived, highly unsuccessful presidential bid two years ago — has dogged him.

But Ryan, D-Howland, had a strong first quarter in which he raised $1,216,187.04.

In the second quarter, between April and June, Ryan’s federal campaign raised $2,258,303.31, almost double what he raised in the first quarter. It’s also more in three months than he raised for the entirety of any of his House races or the presidential campaign.

Ryan must rely on support from individual donors and political action committees for his money. Some of the Republican candidates are and will pour millions of their own dollars into their campaigns or rely on super PACs to do that.

But out of the gate, Ryan’s haul in the first six months of 2021, a year before the Senate election, is impressive.

In an email earlier this week, Ryan’s campaign said that its online fundraising numbers “are plummeting compared to June.” This is a common fundraising ploy, so don’t take it seriously.

Even if the contention that the total raised online is 56 percent less than in June as of Tuesday’s email is true, most of Ryan’s money isn’t from online contributors.

Also eye-opening is the fundraising prowess of businessman Bernie Moreno, a Republican and first-time political candidate. Moreno wasn’t seen as one of the top-tier Republican candidates for Senate, yet he raised a lot of money. Now he has to prove himself again with his third-quarter amount.

Moreno has enough private wealth to self-fund his own campaign. Instead, in the second quarter, Moreno raised $2,249,068.52 with none of the money coming from him. It was the first filing for Moreno, who declared his candidacy April 6.

Unlike Moreno, businessman Mike Gibbons, who is also wealthy, largely was self-funded in the second quarter.

Gibbons, who lost the 2018 Republican primary for the Senate, raised $6,202,786.04 with $5.67 million coming from him.

His campaign announced Thursday that it had reserved $9.9 million in advertising through the May 3, 2022, primary with $2.9 million of it for this year. That’s going to require Gibbons to pour even more of his own money into the campaign.

J.D. Vance, venture capitalist and author, announced July 1 he was running for the Senate seat so he didn’t file a second-quarter report.

But PayPal co-founded Peter Thiel has given $10 million to a super PAC backing Vance.

Former state Treasurer Josh Mandel, who lost a 2012 Senate race and abandoned another in 2018, and former Ohio Republican Party Chairwoman Jane Timken seem to be the early favorites for the GOP nominee.

Timken’s Senate campaign raised $1,142,226.47 in the second quarter and a joint fundraising committee she created with the Stark County Republican Party collected $230,000. This came after a first quarter in which she raised $1,130,395.07 from donors and gave $1 million from her personal wealth to her campaign.

Timken’s campaign touted that she’s the only Republican to raise money from residents in all of the state’s 88 counties with 84 percent of her money coming from within Ohio while the other GOP candidates received fewer contributions from Ohioans.

Joint fundraising committees are tricky in that candidates’ Senate committees can keep only about two-thirds of the money raised.

In Mandel’s case, trying to figure out how much money he actually raised is challenging.

His Team Josh joint fundraising committee he shared with the Shelby County Republican Party raised $1,291,197.28 in the second quarter. His Senate committee can get about $865,000 of it.

Also his Senate committee raised $975,896.10 in the second quarter, but that leaves one with a mistaken impression because $746,938.05 came from a transfer of money from Team Josh that was raised in the first quarter.

Team Josh initially had the Delaware County Republican Party as a partner, but that ended, and it went with Shelby County.

Then the Ohio First Committee was created last week with Team Josh and the Ashtabula County Republican Party as joint participants.

Confused? That’s probably the idea.

Skolnick covers politics for The Vindicator and the Tribune Chronicle.

dskolnick@vindy.com