Huckabee’s challenge in 2016: Growing a national campaign from the grassroots

“You’re going to need $150 million to win the nomination, and probably $75 million to get you through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina,” Ed Rollins, a former Huckabee adviser, said in an interview. “That means 200 to 300 fundraising events and a vast, focused apparatus. Mike didn’t have that last time, and he still has to prove he can develop one.”

Huckabee’s challenge is one shared by an emerging faction of nearly a dozen Republicans — including Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina — pondering how to mount bids that could be sustained beyond the race’s initial stages and compete with the fundraising prowess of more prominent potential contenders, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie…

The aide said Huckabee’s team anticipates the need to raise about $50 million by the time of the Iowa caucuses in early 2016, with the money divided between the campaign’s budget and a super PAC, and said Huckabee has done much work to make that a reachable goal.

“There are people who have come to us talking big numbers,” the aide said. “People who want to do super-PAC stuff, people who want to bundle. That doesn’t mean we’re going to get them all, but there is a level of security on our side that the financial support is going to be there this time.”