Francesca Hong says fundraising shows she has the people-powered campaign 

Similar to other democratic socialist candidates in the U.S., Francesca Hong has built the largest donor base of any candidate in the race for governor of Wisconsin. 

Campaign finance reports are now out and Hong is touting the development of thousands of small donors. Hong leads the field with 13,323 unique donors, with Mandela Barnes in second at 12,765 and Republican Tom Tiffany in third at 11,279. Everyone else in the race has below 2,400 unique donors. 

Hong placed third in the Democratic field for total money raised through June 30 at $1,075,774, with both Barnes and Joel Brennan raising significantly higher amounts. 

Tom Tiffany has surpassed $10 million, largely propped up by three billionaire donors. 

The Hong campaign nearly tripled its money in six months and nearly 45% of everything it has ever raised came in May and June. The average donation is $47 or $81 given per donor. 

Hong said she has the most Wisconsin donors, with 76% of her money coming from inside Wisconsin. The same can’t be said about all the other candidates. 

According to Hong, 70% of Barnes’ donations are from out-of-state and nearly half of the donations are out-of-state $1,000+ donors. Of the 32,763 people who have donated to a Democrat in this primary, 41% gave to Hong and 39% gave to Barnes. No other candidate reaches 8%.

Tiffany has raised ten times Hong’s total and still has fewer donors, fewer donations, and fewer Wisconsin donors than she does. Set aside organization money and the gap narrows sharply: Tiffany has raised $4.3 million from individual people. His average donation is $548, nearly twelve times Hong’s $47.