‘You go, girl!’ Bachmann could raise $52 million in 2012 congressional cycle

The Humphrey Institute’s Smart Politics notes that if Rep. Michele Bachmann’s fundraising pace continues — and if she opts not to run for president — she will raise nearly $52 million by November 2012. That would be a record for a House candidate should her fundraising prowess hold up. In her presidential exploration tour, Bachmann’s been bragging about her fundraising ability, noting that she’s broken the record for fundraising in an election cycle. At a South Carolina Golden Corral restaurant on Saturday she took the news as evidence that a broad section of America is saying to her, “You go girl.”

Smart Politics notes that Bachmann’s cash haul in the first quarter of 2011 is a 447 percent increase from her 2009 numbers.

“If that pattern holds this cycle, Bachmann’s $1.7 million raised in Q1 2011 puts her on pace to raise $52 million for the 2012 cycle – or nearly four times the amount of money she raised during her record-setting 2010 campaign,” wrote Smart Politics.

And that would be a record.

“This last time I ran — which is now my third term — I was the number-one fundraiser in the history of the United States Congress because Nancy Pelosi made me the number one target for defeat,” she said at a campaign stop in South Carolina. “Our average donation was $45, and we raised more money than anyone in the history of the country. The reason for that was a broad section of America said, ‘You go girl! We want someone who’s going to take on President Obama and Nancy Pelosi.’”

Bachmann is accurate when she says she raised the most money in the 2010 cycle; in fact she raised more money in one congressional campaign cycle than any candidate in history.

She missed the mark a bit when she said that Pelosi made her a number-one target. The Democratic campaign apparatus may have made her a top target in 2010, but Nancy Pelosi never did.