If he loses to Mary Landrieu, it won’t be for a lack of money. The press release…

U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, M.D.’s U.S. Senate Campaign announced that it has more than $5.8 million cash on hand for the U.S. Senate race. Cassidy again posted another recording breaking fundraising quarter for Louisiana Republicans seeking federal office, raising more than $1.6 million.

Dr. Cassidy released the following statement:

“The financial support our campaign received has been overwhelming. I’m excited to go into the fall with more than $5.8 million cash on hand – putting our campaign in an incredibly strong position. I’m always especially honored by the grassroots donations from Louisianans. People across our state are feeling the burden of Barack Obama and Mary Landrieu’s economy, but they are already voting with their pocket books because they know this election is an opportunity to stop Mary Landrieu’s almost universal support for Barack Obama’s crippling agenda.” – Congressman Bill Cassidy, M.D.

For historical comparison, Dr. Cassidy has raised more money to date than any candidate to challenge Mary Landrieu. He has exceeded U.S. Senator David Vitter, who won his 2010 U.S. Senate race by 19 points, during this same quarter in 2010 in which Vitter banked $5.5 million.

At the end of the first quarter Cassidy had right at $5 million in the bank and he’d raised a total of $6.4 million. That means he’s raised about $8 million so far, and it also means he spent about half the $1.6 million he raised in the second quarter. You could question that burn rate to an extent, particularly when he spent half what he took in and only went up on the air with the campaign ad about congressional exemptions to Obamacare this month, but he’s still in far better shape than any Republican challenger to Landrieu has ever been.

We don’t have Landrieu’s numbers yet. She has outraised him in virtually every quarter so far but she’s also spending a lot more money than he is without a whole lot to show for it in the polls.

Cassidy’s challenge is going to be to start spending that war chest in a manner that won’t draw it down and will move the needle in the polls. He needs to start showing himself consistently ahead of Landrieu – something the last two polls didn’t show – and create the perception that she’s facing more than just an uphill battle to win. He needs to make the big Democrat money think Mary is a bad investment because she can’t win.

To date Cassidy’s been building that war chest, and that effort is a successful one. He’s got to start making it work for him.

UPDATE: Landrieu’s numbers…

Landrieu, the three term incumbent, reported $1.96 million in donations during the second quarter of 2014, another $146,000 via transfers from joint-fundraising with other candidate and Democratic committees, for a total of $2.1 million — her biggest quarterly haul yet. She spent $3.39 million, but still had over $6.2 million in available cash.

So that’s your explanation for Landrieu’s resurgent competitiveness in the polls – she outspent Cassidy by four-to-one in the second quarter and actually burned more cash than she brought in.

And Cassidy’s war chest is within $400,000 of Landrieu’s at this point.

Landrieu has never had a Republican challenger anywhere near parity with her from a fundraising perspective. That’s the case this time.