Former Denver DA Bill Ritter was Colorado’s first gubanatorial candidate to announce fundraising reports from the third quarter of this year, and his results were fairly impressive.

Ritter raised nearly $300,000 in his Q3 efforts, an amount that is more than respectable for a Democrat more than a year before the general election. That gives Ritter a total of about $460,000 raised thus far in his campaign, and while he does lag well behind the two announced Republican candidates — Marc Holtzman and Bob Beauprez — Ritter is still doing pretty well.

Holtzman raised a total of $802,000 after the first two quarters of this year, and Beauprez raised $403,700 in a little more than one quarter. Both candidates will reportedly surpass a total of $1 million raised when they announce their fundraising numbers sometime this week. Those figures would mean that Ritter has raised less than half of what his Republican opponents have brought in, but Republicans traditionally outraise Democrats (with some exceptions, of course) in major statewide races.

More importantly for Ritter is whether his $460,000 is enough to scare away potential primary opponents. If Ritter can keep another Democrat from entering the race, he should have more than enough money to be competitive in the general election next year because Holtzman and Beauprez will spend a lot of their own money duking it out in a primary.