By Patrick Crowley
Enquirer staff writer

FORT WRIGHT - Kentucky's U.S. Senate candidates used different methods in the last three months to raise campaign money.

Incumbent Sen. Jim Bunning, a Southgate Republican, raised $782,516 during the second quarter of this year and is well on the way to breaking the record for the most money raised in a Kentucky U.S. Senate race.

Meanwhile, Bunning's Democratic challenger - eastern Kentucky state Sen. Dr. Daniel Mongiardo - loaned his campaign another $500,000.

Mongiardo has loaned himself a total of $706,000 and the campaign will report to the Federal Election Commission this week that it had more than $700,000 in the bank on June 30, the end of the latest campaign finance-reporting period.

Mongiardo has raised a total of $1.3 million.

"We'll have the money it takes to win," said Mongiardo campaign manager Kim Geveden.

"Daniel's committed to that and his actions have demonstrated that."

But Bunning is on a record-setting fund-raising pace and will almost certainly eclipse the $5.963 million raised by Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell in 2002.

Bunning, a one-term incumbent who also served six terms in the U.S. House, has raised $5.746 million and had $3.9 million in cash as of June 30, his campaign said Tuesday.

"We will have the resources necessary this fall to get out our message," Bunning said in a statement. "We are running an aggressive campaign all the way through Election Day on Nov. 2."

David Young, Bunning's campaign manager, said Mongiardo's loan "is confirmation that Kentuckians aren't buying his liberal ideas and that they are supportive of Sen. Bunning's record and leadership."

The Louisville Courier-Journal contributed. E-mail pcrowley@enquirer.com