Toomey holds fund-raising edge over Sestak

In U.S. Senate race, Pennsylvania GOP candidate is receiving donations from across the country while Democrat struggles to keep up with opponent’s war chest.

The Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race has both campaigns racing for money. With less than a month to go before the election, Republican Pat Toomey is outpacing his Democratic opponent Joe Sestak in both poll numbers and dollars raised.

The Toomey campaign announced this week it raised $3.8 million in the last quarter. That’s about half a million more than Sestak — who raked in $3.2 million. But Toomey had much more to start with after Sestak spent millions to defeat incumbent Arlen Specter in the primary.

Nachama Soloveichik, communications director for the Toomey campaign, says more than 64,000 donors across the country have contributed to the campaign.

“And it means we’ll have the resources we need to get our message out in the final weeks and combat a lot of the distortions and falsehoods you’ll be hearing from the Sestak team and the Democratic Party in Washington,” says Soloveichik.

In total, Toomey has raised about $14 million.

Sestak has raised $5 million since the primary. Sestak has also gotten support from the National Democratic Party — which is running anti-Toomey ads across the state.

The National Republican Party is expected to do the same against Sestak in the coming weeks.