Johnson has $866,000 for campaign for governor

With six weeks until the election, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson says he's raised a total of $1.5 million for his campaign, and has more than $850,000 in cash on hand.

Most of the money - about $1 million - came in over the last two months, with roughly a third of that, $389,000, coming from the state's public subsidy program.

To be specific, Johnson raised $620,038 from donors between July 22 and Sept. 16 of this year.

Those figures appear to lag behind fundraising goals Johnson set out for himself earlier in the summer, when he told the Pioneer Press he expected to raise $2.5  million and $3 million to win the general election.

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Nevertheless, Johnson is optimistic.

“Our fundraising really took off after the primary—particularly after Labor Day—we are on track to meet our financial goals and our television ads will be up on the air very soon," Johnson said. "We are on the road to victory.”

This week, Gov. Mark Dayton launched the first TV ad of his campaign and has reserved $1.3 million in airtime between now and Election Day. And Dayton's allies have been busy trying to define Johnson's candidacy with their own set of ads.

It has been nearly two months since Johnson had an ad on television.

But Johnson is also sitting on a lot of cash. He has about $866,000 in the bank to spend between now and Nov. 4.

Other candidates, including Dayton, are expected to release their fundraising reports in the next 24 hours.