Gubernatorial Fundraising Totals Released

By Matthew Gagnon
July 15, 2009

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Today is the filing deadline for Maine candidates, and the details of their reports have already begun circulating. Candidates are required to file the June pre-election semiannual report if the candidate raises or spends more than a total of $1,000 before June 30, 2009. So, those candidates who just recently announced or haven’t engaged in any real campaign fundraising as of yet were not required to complete the form.

The next reporting period will be through the end of December, and reports will be due on January 15th. Take it from me – the January report will be a lot more interesting than this one.

Still, there is quite a bit of fun packed in these reports, so lets give you a basic breakdown:

REPUBLICANS

Bruce Poliquin

Link to report – Here
Raised – $276,939
Cash on hand – $192,227

Matt Jacobson

Link to report – Here
Raised – $39,586
Cash on hand – 10,008

Les Otten

Link to report – Here
Raised – $7,753.00
Cash on hand – $3,820.47

In a release, the Poliquin campaign claimed victory in “round one”, saying that his cash advantage over Jacobson means that Mainers are responding to his campaign:

“I may have taken Round One, but I know this is a heavyweight fight,” Poliquin added. “Our campaign has a long way to go before this is over. We are continuing to build momentum, raise money, reach out to voters, and bring our message to as many Mainers as we can. We’re not taking a day off.”

I also spoke with some people from the Jacobson campaign. They indicated that the campaign did not make any kind of fundraising push whatsoever, instead focusing on grassroots campaigning, and that the 40,000 dollar total was a completely organic phenomenon from individual donors supporting the campaign. They indicated that they will be ramping up fundraising in the next six months, and that this result was more than satisfactory at this stage in the campaign.

Personally, the numbers I choose to look at if we really want to compare these two candidates are actually $117,351 and $38,290, which are the totals each drummed up without personal contributions to their own campaign, or in kind contributions. Both totals are respectable, though Poliquin’s are obviously quite impressive, even without his own contribution.

I’ve worked on countless political campaigns – national level races all the way down to my own race for state legislature in 2004, and one thing I’ve learned about fundraising is that it is not the initial totals that matter. What matters is momentum, and the expectations game.

A strong showing in the first reporting period by one candidate doesn’t matter much in the second period if his opponent then out-raises him then, because they then not only show fundraising prowess, but recapture the big mo.

Similarly, however, a strong first period that is followed up by even MORE distance being put between the top two candidates basically cements front-runner status, and can have major implications for the long haul of a campaign.

The January report will tell me a lot more about this race than the first report did.

DEMOCRATS

Steve Rowe

Link to report – Here
Raised – $59,232.60
Cash on hand – $57,791.67

Dawn Hill

No information as of yet.

Not nearly as interesting as the Republican race at this point, Steve Rowe has raised roughly $60,000 and spent almost nothing. Dawn Hill hasn’t released a report, and one assumes that is because she hasn’t raised any actual money yet.

This race, much like the Republicans, should have a much more interesting set of numbers next January.

GREENS

Lynne Williams

Link to report – Here
Raised – $3,295
Cash on hand – $1,162.53

Patrick Quinlan

No information as of yet.

Certainly not the big money race – but then again, third party runs don’t typically feature much money anyway, so this isn’t much of a shocker.

INDEPENDENTS

Samme Bailey, Augustus Edgerton, Alex Hammer and John Whitcomb have all failed to file a report, which means they have not fundraised anything to this point.

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Tags: Augustus Edgerton, Bruce Poliquin, Campaign Finance, Dawn Hill, John Whitcomb, Les Otten, Lynne Williams, Matt Jacobson, Steve Rowe

9 Responses to “Gubernatorial Fundraising Totals Released”

Derek Viger

15. Jul, 2009

You were talking about momentum being more important to fundraising then these actual first totals in your piece. Is there any way to track/graph that other than comparing totals released now with totals released in Jan and so on? Being a graph nerd I’m itching to make one on this.
Jim Huisle

15. Jul, 2009

Jacobson is done. He should get out.
Matthew Gagnon

15. Jul, 2009

The only way we can really track anything is to know their numbers from now until December, which they will of course play close to the vest.

If you’d like to make a chart/graph, however, might I suggest taking their respective reports and plotting the donation totals into a spreadsheet (they are all complete with dates). You could then plot how much they received per day/week/month, etc… that way you can track momentum a little bit for this first reporting period.

I would make sure to only track the money that was actually donated though – if you want to know if a candidate is hitting on the grassroots, adding in their own money into the mix shouldn’t really count.

Might be a neat idea to track in state vs. out of state money as well.

Just a few ideas.
Matthew Gagnon

15. Jul, 2009

Jim,

Hardly. Otten hasn’t raised anything yet, and I don’t think anyone would call him “done” yet. The first fundraising period for a gubernatorial campaign is meaningless… everyone gets started at different times, some have staff others are working all volunteer… having a somewhat light total right now means nothing.

Poliquin’s total was impressive, but nobody is going to right off people like Steve Rowe who has been “in” since basically November 2008, just because he only hauled in upper 50′s.

I’d relax and just watch it develop. We honestly don’t have any idea what ANY of these guys’ true fundraising potential is.
Rob

15. Jul, 2009

So let me get this straight. Jacobson had no staff and no fundraisers, and raised $40K. Poliquin has been campaigning full time for 3 months, and has hired at least 2 professional staffers. He raised $116K. Seems like Poliquin’s return on investment is poor.
Randy Hughes-King

16. Jul, 2009

Les Otten is the long shot for many reasons (mostly he is running with the wrong party for his positions). Poliquin is the best chance for Republicans but Jacobson could surprise everyone if he reaches out better than the other candidates.
Derek Viger

16. Jul, 2009

I had one Anonymous Commenter state that I should “READ THE REPORT!” in regards to Poliquin’s numbers. They only counted the 116K that Rob mentioned. Anonymous was quite perturbed that personal contributions from the candidates were counted.

I agree with your numbers. Whether the money came from the candidate themselves or someone’s Aunt Hazel they still have it. If the wording used here, which I also used “raised”, offends some that is unfortunate.

Just thought I’d let readers here know since my post sprouted from this one.

PS – I deleted the comment and changed my settings. I hate anonymous comments.
Matthew Gagnon

16. Jul, 2009

Derek – exactly.

Poliquin should indeed get credit for raising the additional 160k, absolutely. No matter how he got it, those are legal campaign funds that he now has at his disposal to spend, and the certainly show that he is committed enough to his run to sink in some considerable cash early in the game. That is noteworthy.

The only caveat I have is that if we are going to judge how much legwork a candidate did to get their money, we should use the 116k figure for him, and the baseline figure for the other candidates as well – because I think that is a better judge of how much money they are raising than numbers which include personal contributions.

In short – the personal money should be included and talked about, but should be explained. Doing side by side comparisons should probably be done with outside fundraising, IMHO.
Bill B.

16. Jul, 2009

If money is an indicator of who’s ahead, then who have to include what Poliquin put in himself. Money is money no matter where is comes from. But if you’re trying to look between the numbers for some gauge of who gets more votes, then wouldn’t it actually make more sense to look at the number of donors? Poliquin had 453 and Jacobson has 123. Again, a huge lead for Poliquin. I know you guys are trying to be fair, but it looks like you’re skirting around the obvious.

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