Hillary Clinton Has Raised 1,500 Times More Than Challenger Lincoln Chafee

The former Rhode Island governor, a Republican-turned-independent who’s running for the Democratic presidential nomination, raised less than $30,000 in his first quarter as a candidate, according to his Federal Election Commission report.

In 2010, the Chafees self-funded more than $1.6 million out of $2.5 million raised for his gubernatorial campaign.

His bid against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton was always going to be an uphill battle, but the report underscores the difficulty Chafee will have in merely keeping his campaign’s lights on without substantial injections of cash from his own bank account. He loaned $364,000, in addition to what he received from donors, giving his campaign about $329,000 in cash on hand.

Chafee acknowledges his fundraising has to improve.

His latest filing with the FEC shows that he has raised slightly more than $28,000, which, as Politico notes, is more than 500 times less than what Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has raised and far less than what several long-shot 2016 Senate and House candidates have managed to raise so far. During his formal announcement in Virginia in June, he called for the U.S.to switch to the metric system.

“It appears that Chafee, O’Malley and Webb have a bit of a hill to climb”, Chafee spokeswoman Debbie Rich told Boston.com.

Former Rhode Island Gov. formally enters the race for president in a speech at George Mason University in Arlington, Va., Wednesday, June 3, 2015.

The campaign has hired a Pawtucket (R.I.) firm, Figments Delicious Design and Creative Marketing, to do fundraising and website design.