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The election for U.S. Senate is next year, and it's already shaping up as an expensive race.
Incumbent Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, raised $3.5 million from donors during the first three months of the year, according to his latest filing with the Federal Election Commission.
It's the most raised from donors by an Ohio candidate in the first quarter of the year before an election.
It's also about three times as much as Democrat Tim Ryan raised in the first quarter of 2021 -- $1.2 million -- the year before the 2022 election for Senate. That was before Ryan officially announced his candidacy, but he was planning a bid.
Before last year's Senate race, Brown had the record for the most money raised during a Senate campaign from donors. He received $26.6 million for his 2018 campaign. The prior record was during the 2016 campaign when Republican Rob Portman raised $25.4 million to win his second six-year Senate term.
Ryan would go on to shatter the Brown record by raising $57.7 million -- and lose to Republican J.D. Vance, who raised $15.9 million with $1.4 million coming from him. Vance's campaign was helped significantly by a lot of outside spending.
Last year's Senate race also showed that Democrats can raise a lot of money for campaigns in Ohio, but the state still solidly leans Republican so it's still an uphill climb for them.
Brown is the only statewide Democrat to run with the party label on the ballot to win Ohio in nearly 15 years.
The lone Republican candidate for Senate to file a first quarter campaign finance report was state Sen. Matt Dolan of Chagrin Falls. That's because he was the only declared Republican candidate for the seat until Bernie Moreno, a Cleveland-area businessman, made his announcement Tuesday and filed a statement with the FEC a week prior.
Dolan received $348,517 from donors during the first quarter of the year. That would be a strong number if he were running for the U.S. House of Representatives, but not for the Senate.
However, Dolan also loaned
$3 million on Feb. 22 to his committee. That brings his total for the quarter to $3.3 million -- $230,499 less than what Brown raised from donors.
There's plenty more where that came from.
Dolan was a candidate for about nine months in the 2022 Republican primary, when he put $10.6 million from his pocket into his campaign.
Dolan finished third out of seven behind Vance and former state Treasurer Josh Mandel.
Dolan certainly wants to raise money from donors as it's less money needed from his personal wealth, but I expect he will go beyond the $10.6 million he spent in last year's primary.
He's been sending numerous emails to potential donors including one this week touting Brown's successful quarter.
These emails are often overdramatic; this is no exception.
The recent one from Dolan reads: "We're more than a year away from the 2024 election and the left is already pumping millions of dollars into the campaign of their favorite liberal senator -- Sherrod Brown. We had our suspicions that Brown would have a strong showing for the first quarter, but we never expected it would be this bad. We've got work to do. The left isn't waiting. They have already raised $3.5 million in preparation for a massive campaign in 2024."
Moreno also is wealthy and expected to put millions into his campaign. Before dropping out last year, Moreno gave $3.81 million to his campaign.
Brown used Moreno's announcement as a way to raise more cash for his effort.
In an email to potential donors, the Brown campaign wrote of Moreno: "This is bad: a self-funding GOP millionaire just entered the race to defeat Sherrod in Ohio -- and at this critical moment, we're falling short of our $50,000 rapid-response goal. Make no mistake: if elected, this country club Republican would be a disaster for workers and families across Ohio."
One of the efforts used by campaigns is to throw out a lower dollar amount -- $50,000 in the Brown email -- and contend that they haven't reached it yet so please give some money or a crisis will occur.