Political Buzz - Separating the wheat from the chaff: Gubernatorial campaign finance edition

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Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Separating the wheat from the chaff: Gubernatorial campaign finance edition

Posted by Niki Sullivan @ 05:50:46 pm

I've been writing about April fundraising totals for Gov. Chris Gregoire and her opponent, Dino Rossi, since the month ended. And, while I now have some memos and guestimations, I don't have all the answers.

I do, however, have some questions. And math. Here goes.

Gregoire reported $2.843 million cash on hand in March. Subtract $75,803.16 in unpaid debt and you've got $2.767 million.

Rossi ended the month with $2.623 million cash on hand, zero unpaid debts. (Spokeswoman Jill Strait says the campaign pays debts as they're incurred, which means none carry over.)

So ... Gregoire's campaign memo says they raised $1.3 million this month and indicated they'd end up with about a million more cash on hand. That means they spent the $.3 million (OK, $300,000) and will now have somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.8 million. Got that?

Now for Rossi: Strait told me they raised about $625,000 and ended with around $3.1 million cash on hand. Get out your pencils.

$2.623 million + $625,000 = $3.248 million.

$3.248 million - X = $3.1 million. (X = all expenditures for the month.)

X = $148,000.

Question = The Rossi campaign spent about twice that during the previous month. And the month before. So how did they save all that dough? Strait told me they were being fiscally conservative.

To be clear, I believe and distrust everyone equally. Nobody wants to tell me – and, by extension, you and their competition – the truth about money until they have to.

So we'll wait, impatiently, for the final numbers. Unless anyone cares to enlighten me. You know how to reach me.

Categories: Governor, Campaign news • 2 comments

COMMENTS:

Comment by jackryanjr @ 19:21 - Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

They probably didn't spend as much on fundraising last month as they did in march. That's cyclical and can be expensive, particularly mail. Looking at their March report they spent a lot on fundraising mail.

Also, how come a challenger who didn't start raising money until last october has (according to your numbers) about 10,000 more donors than an incumbent governor?

Comment by Niki Sullivan @ 09:36 - Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Yes, it's true that Rossi's campaign says they have about 10,000 more donors than Gregoire's. I talked to a Gregoire campaign staffer last night about this very issue.

The PDC requires the campaigns to file the names of those who have given more than $25. So the number of people who have donated more than that are, obviously, a known quantity.

Below that, I have no way to verify. Am I saying the campaigns are lying? Never! I'm just saying I don't know 'how come a challenger who didn't start raising money until last october has (according to [not my] numbers) about 10,000 more donors than an incumbent governor.'

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