Trisha Calvarese, the Colorado Democrat hoping to deny Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert a third term in Congress, raked in five times as much as the incumbent in the most recent fundraising quarter, according to fundraising totals their campaigns plan to file on Tuesday, Colorado Politics has learned.

While Calvarese appears to be winning the contribution race, the first-time candidate faces a steep climb in the 4th Congressional District, which covers Colorado’s eastern plains and is the state’s safest Republican seat.

Calvarese plans to report bringing in more than $2.68 million from July through September, compared to roughly $532,000 raised by Boebert, their campaigns said.

Calvarese headed into October with more than $1.3 million in the bank, while Boebert had about $548,000 at the end of the third quarter. Both candidates have already spent much of that cache on heavy TV and digital advertising that started in October.

Ballots started going out to most Colorado voters at the end of last week and are due back to county clerks by 7 p.m. Nov. 5.

The Democrat’s fundraising took off this quarter after Calvarese secured the nomination in the June primary, giving her the chance to pitch herself to small-dollar donors nationwide as the candidate taking on Boebert, one of the highest-profile Republican lawmakers in the country.

During the quarter, Calvarese’s campaign received more than 142,000 contributions from 63,000 unique donors, for an average of $19 per donation, her campaign said. Fully 99% of her contributions were under $200, a Calvarese spokesman said.

Boebert’s campaign didn’t release details on her contributions. Both campaigns said they planned to file reports with the Federal Election Commission by Tuesday afternoon, ahead of the midnight deadline.

Calvarese said in a statement that her fundraising suggests she has the momentum to score an upset.

“Rep. Lauren Boebert’s disrespect of veterans, failure to do anything to lower prices, violation of individual freedoms and willingness to give up America’s competitive edge has galvanized an outpouring of support from across Colorado,” Calvarese said. “People want someone who is going to fight for them, their families and the towns they love. That’s what we’re offering and why folks from all parties are joining our movement.”

A spokesman for Boebert’s campaign declined to comment on the fundraising numbers.

Rated as “Solid Republican” by national election forecasters, including the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the 4th CD’s voters haven’t elected a Democrat since 2008, when the district included more Democratic-friendly counties prior to multiple rounds of redistricting.

Rather than throw in the towel, however, Calvarese has pointed to internal polling her campaign conducted before the primary that showed a potentially tough general election race for Boebert, who was viewed negatively by an unusually large share of the district’s voters.

After narrowly winning reelection to a second term in the 3rd CD two years ago — in the closest House race in the country — Boebert announced late last year that she was moving into the friendlier 4th CD, where five-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Ken Buck had said he wouldn’t seek another term.

Buck, however, abruptly resigned in March, triggering a vacancy election in June to fill the seat through the remainder of his term. In that election, which was conducted on the same day as the primary, Republican Greg Lopez defeated Calvarese by 24 percentage points — about the same margin Buck had over his Democratic challenger in the 2020 and 2022 elections.

At the same time, Boebert prevailed in a five-way Republican primary and Calvarese won a three-way Democratic primary, beating the candidate who lost the last two races to Buck.