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RANDLEMAN, N.C. (AP) —
She had never before given more than a few hundred dollars to a politician. But two weeks ago, Jacquelyn Monroe, a single mother who plays the piano for a living, decided to raise $100,000 for Ben Carson.
Inspired by a brief meeting at the hotel where she works, the 45-year-old Georgia woman joined an army of middle-class Americans fueling the fundraising juggernaut that is Carson's Republican presidential campaign.
"It's not something that I would normally set out to do," said Monroe, who added she was moved by Carson's authenticity and Christian faith and coaxed into collecting money from friends and business associates by his ambitious campaign staff. "$100,000-plus is a big deal for me."
While the GOP establishment remains deeply skeptical of the retired neurosurgeon's chances in 2016, even the most seasoned political operatives concede that Carson's ability to raise money, if not his rising poll numbers, exceeds their expectations and ensures him a prominent place in the packed Republican contest four months before voting begins.
Carson's team confirmed Wednesday he has raised more than $20 million in the three-month period that ended Wednesday and $31 million overall since he entered the race in May — much of it from small-dollar donors or newcomers to presidential politics.
Senior campaign staffers had a special cake made Wednesday to celebrate their fundraising haul, which was more money than what was raised by the GOP's entire White House field combined over the same period four years ago.
Flush with cash, Carson campaign manager Barry Bennett said he has initiated plans to begin reserving television ad space across the South for primary contests scheduled for early March.
"Sooner or later, they'll have to realize there's a new reality or they'll pay the price," Bennett said in a message aimed at the Republican establishment. "The outsiders are not going away."
But for all the fundraising success, Carson's campaign was burning through donor money faster than almost anyone else in the race through June. Bennett estimated the campaign had at least $12 million in the bank as of Wednesday.
He declined to say how much money the campaign has spent on fundraising, details that will be included in a financial report due to federal regulators in two weeks.
It's unclear if any of Carson's 2016 Republican rivals will hit the $20 million mark for the quarter, which ended Wednesday. The two leading Democrat have: Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign said late Wednesday it had raised $28 million, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' team said it had pulled in roughly $26 million.
Carson, who has never held elected office, has relied largely on creative techniques designed by his team to capitalize on tremendous interest from disaffected voters drawn to his underdog bid.
He quickly raised $250,000 by listing the names of his supporters' children on the side of his campaign bus for $50 each. The campaign will soon make available the other side of the bus. An email solicitation sent to Carson's ballooning email list on his Sept. 18 birthday netted $2 million. And Monroe was coaxed into becoming a Carson "bundler" when the candidate's son, a former cellist, promised to join one of her musical performances if she generated $100,000 for his dad.
"We're creating bundlers out of piano players," said Carson's national finance chairman, Dean Parker, a former technology executive and newcomer to national politics himself. "We've convinced the average person to say, 'I can raise money to support Ben Carson.' "
Carson's fortunes surged even after he said recently he would not support a Muslim president, drawing condemnation from Republicans and Democrats. His campaign raised roughly $700,000 in the 36 hours after he made the comment, Bennett said.
Carson will continue to embrace the issue. On Thursday, Bennett said, Carson would call for the revocation of the non-profit tax status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group, whose leader called on Carson to leave the race last month.
"The Judeo-Christian values upon which America was built allowed us to become the greatest force for good on the planet," Carson says in a fundraising appeal distributed this week that repeats his criticism of a prospective Muslim president who supports Sharia law.
Donors interviewed in recent days explained their motivation in remarkably similar terms. They cite Carson's authenticity, outsider status and Christian faith as major draws.
People were almost literally throwing money at him this week as his campaign bus greeted a handful of supporters on the side of the road after a stop in North Carolina. Dean Barney, a 63-year-old truck driver, waved two $20 bills at Carson as he walked off the bus.
"He sounds like a man who believes we need to get back to our Christian heritage," said Barney, who lives in Asheboro, North Carolina, when asked what inspired him to donate. "I like his humility. And he's no politician."
Meanwhile, Monroe says she just got her fundraising website up and running a few days ago. She concedes the $100,000 goal is ambitious, but she wants to aim big.
"Politics is not necessarily my forte," said Monroe, a single mother who isn't registered with any political party. "But you see someone like Ben Carson come along, you want to see someone like that leading."
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) —
One person died Thursday as heavy flooding submerged cars and closed streets in South Carolina, and the drenching storms were expected to move up the East Coast, a region already walloped by rain.
Governors up and down the coast warned residents to prepare. The rains could cause power outages and close more roads. The approach of Hurricane Joaquin — a major Category 3 storm set to wallop the Bahamas and move toward the U.S. — could intensify the damage, but rain is forecast across the region regardless of the storm's path.
"Our state has seen the damage that extreme weather can cause time and time again - and I am urging New Yorkers to take precautions for more heavy storms in the coming days," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday.
In Spartanburg, South Carolina, the heavy rains flooded and closed streets. Several cars were submerged in flash floods. One man was rescued Thursday morning after his vehicle was swept off the road where a culvert had washed out, Doug Bryson with Spartanburg County Emergency Management told local news outlets. The man managed to cling to a tree and was taken to a hospital for treatment, though there was no immediate word on his condition.
Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said 56-year-old Sylvia Arteaga of Spartanburg died Thursday morning when her car was flooded. She was driving underneath an overpass just outside city limits when her car flooded "to capacity" inside.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Joaquin was bearing down on the Bahamas, and forecasters said the storm is likely to strengthen as it makes its way toward the U.S.
But no matter which way Joaquin heads, an area of low pressure in the Southeast and a front stalled over the East Coast will pull moisture from the Atlantic Ocean, causing rain over the next few days, said Bruce Terry, lead forecaster for the government's Weather Prediction Center. The National Weather Service predicts as much as 10 inches for some areas.
"The bottom line is: We are expecting very heavy rains all the way from the Carolinas up into New England," he said.
The heaviest rain is expected in wide swaths of North Carolina and Virginia, along with parts of Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, according to a National Weather Service forecast map.
In North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency and said emergency management officials are preparing for expected floods by readying supplies and going over readiness checklists.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency Wednesday afternoon, which allows emergency responders to begin to prepare for the storms.
He also issued tips to residents, including that "when roads are flooded, turn around and drive to a safe location.
"It may save your life."
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie also declared a state of emergency. New Jersey has been hit by intermittent heavy rains and strong on-shore winds the last few days, and that's expected to continue, especially Friday and Saturday.
Officials were closely watching the progress of the hurricane, though its path was far from certain. So far, there's been little consensus among computer-prediction models for the hurricane.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami sent a plane aloft Wednesday to gather data about Joaquin that will hopefully "get those models into better agreement," said Rick Knabb, the center's director.
"We're going to be throwing a lot more aircraft resources at this problem over the next few days," he said.
Storms in recent days have already caused misery in southwest Virginia. In Salem on Tuesday, 30 members of a water-rescue team removed 100 people from a low-lying apartment complex and trailer park.
To the west in Elliston, Shannon Sledd waited out the storm in the house she shares with her disabled parents and her two sons. Floodwaters up to 5 feet deep rose up to her front door, but didn't get inside.
"My mom and dad are really nervous," Sledd said. "We might have to get out."
In North Carolina, steady rains have already disrupted communities from the central part of the state to the coast.
Some roads were closed Wednesday in Guilford County, and emergency medical service Director Don Campbell said he feared that more rain expected through the weekend would topple trees and knock out power.
Along the coast, parts of North Topsail Beach eroded from rains and an unusually high tide over the weekend, so officials were watching the hurricane's approach.
"We haven't had time to recover from last weekend," said Carin Faulkner, the assistant town manager.
In New England, downpours Wednesday led to flooding. Western Massachusetts got up to 5 inches in just hours, according to the National Weather Service. Rainfall totals topped 6 inches in Maine and 5 inches in New Hampshire, leading to flash flood warnings. The University of Southern Maine canceled classes at its Portland, Gorham and Lewiston-Auburn campuses.
More than 6,000 power outages were reported in Maine.
College student Krystal Diaz said her commute by bus to downtown Providence, Rhode Island, from nearby Johnston had been especially long because of poor visibility and heavy traffic.
"Buses were going slow," Diaz said. "I was late for one of my classes."
NEW YORK (AP) —
Potential voters who take their curiosity about presidential candidates to Google are interested in Hillary Rodham Clinton's age, Jeb Bush's height, Chris Christie's weight, Donald Trump's net worth, Carly Fiorina's marital status and Bobby Jindal's birthplace.
Those were among the top questions that the Internet search engine was asked about each candidate over the past couple of months. The data, which is being released by Google this year for the first time during a presidential campaign, gives insight into what voters are thinking about that is different from what traditional pollsters provide.
The first lesson may be not to forget the basics: shortly after Google first released questions posed about each candidate, Republican Marco Rubio's campaign released a video in which he answered some of them.
Google gets some three billion search requests each day and is beginning to see the value of compiling that information. For instance, conventional pollsters badly missed the breadth of David Cameron and his Conservative Party's victory in the British elections this spring. Google didn't necessarily predict it either, but picked up an intriguing increase in the amount of questions people were asking about the Conservatives in the days before voting, said Simon Rogers, data editor for Google's News Lab.
Height is clearly a preoccupation of Google searchers. Besides Bush, that was the top question about Christie, John Kasich, George Pataki and Rand Paul. Age is also a popular query. Two of the top four questions about New Jersey's Christie concerned how much he weighed and how much weight he had lost.
Before he shot up in the polls late in the summer, voters simply wanted to know: "Who is Ben Carson?"
After questions about her age and height, searchers asked about Clinton: "What did Hillary do wrong?" Other questions concerned whether she was still running or if she was in trouble. Some specific questions were asked frequently, such as why Fiorina was fired as Hewlett Packard's chief executive, Mike Huckabee's views on the Iran deal and Rubio's position on gay marriage.
Google does not publicly release specific numbers on the searches conducted on each candidate.
While not scientific, the Google search information gives an interesting snapshot, said Lee Miringoff, director of Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion.
"If you're a candidate, you ignore information like this at your own peril," he said.
As the campaign moves along, the types of queries from voters are likely to become much more specific, Rogers said. The data should remind journalists that voters know far less about people running for president than they do, he said. Privately, in front of a computer screen, they might ask questions that they would not necessarily bring up publicly.
There's plenty of potential for the information Google is collecting. "This is new and we're only starting to scratch the surface of it," he said.
In his video, Rubio sensed an opportunity as he read from a smartphone and answered questions posed in Google searches about his age, nationality and whether he was a twin. "No, I'm not," he said, laughing.
Then he saw an opportunity. The last question he posed: "How can I work on Marco Rubio's campaign?"
"Well, you can go to our website, that's the easiest way to plug into our campaign," he said. "I hope you'll join us."