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Thursday was the filing deadline for Alabama’s Congressional candidates for fundraising activity in the April 1 – May 14 reporting period. I was busy enough otherwise that I asked someone that I knew had an eye on the AL-02 race if he’d be willing to offer Parlor readers a run-down of the financial picture in the AL-02 GOP primary.
Note that David Grimes’ report was not yet available. (I am told he files reports via FedEx, not electronically, and so they are slower to be available online.)
I appreciate these comments offered:
Fundraising for the race for the 2nd Congressional District Republican Primary is following the expectations of many observers long before even the first report was filed in January of 2008. Those with a fundraising base – such as Senator Harri Anne Smith – have squeezed many dollars out of a relatively small geographic area. Others without such a base have looked to other means – such as David Woods – who has raised a respectable amount of money in contributions, but most has come from outside of the state borders.
The Federal Elections Commission requires that in addition to quarterly reports, that each campaign file a pre-primary report and those of the leading candidates are now up on the FEC website. Some analysis and thoughts regarding the candidate fundraising is below.
As of Monday, May 19th, the two leading candidates in fundraising from individual contributors and Political Action Committees were Senator Harri Anne Smith and State Rep. Jay Love. Senator Smith had out-raised her nearest competitor by more than $100,000 having raised just over $335,000 to date and Rep. Love had raised just over $215,000 to date. Businessman David Woods had raised close to $150,000 from PACs and Individuals.
As of that same report, the all important cash on hand remained significant for three of the candidates. Senator Smith showed $161,000 in her account, David Woods showed $148,000 in his account and Rep. Love showed $141,000.
The Monday deadline reports have also shown a willingness of at least four of the candidates to spend significant personal resources in the campaign. Dr. Craig Schmidtke has given or loaned his campaign over $525,000, Rep. Love has loaned his campaign almost $350,000, David Woods has loaned at least $250,000 and Senator Smith has loaned her campaign almost $150,000.
Senator Smith has had a clear fundraising advantage over her competitors and also shows a willingness to spend her own resources – something that many predicted, but had not been evident until recently. Rep. Jay Love and David Woods share the same fundraising opportunities with State Rep. David Grimes as well as Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright. The competition among those individuals for available dollars and those willing to pick one horse over another considering the influence of each in their respective jobs is evident among many who have witnessed the last several months of furious campaigning and fundraising.
The obvious “parlor game” questions surround “who” will survive the primary and who will meet in a run-off beginning June 4th. Other questions remain regarding the finances of each candidate. How much does each candidate truly have in their coffers to spend these last two weeks? How much will it have cost to survive the first test? Who spent their dollars wisely and who did not?
Those questions and more will be answered on June 3rd and on the next quarterly reports to be filed by the candidates and their campaigns.
Since then, Jay Love has loaned his campaign another $100,000 bringing the total he has provided his campaign to $449,000. More on that especially related to the so-called Millionaire’s Amendment in an upcoming post.
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Danny, on a different note, how did the District 3 fundraising figures turn out this quarter? If you are going to make a post on it, I apologize for jumping the gun.
I was attacked by several individuals for suggesting that Segall’s first quarter fundraising numbers were a reflection of his father’s influence and that his later fundraising numbers would be more telling. I just wanted to know whether my theory proved accurate or not.
All of that money that Schmidtke has put in and he still claims to have student loan debt, also don’t forget about his 100,000 electric car he has a deposit down for (See Sebastian Kitchen’s Advertiser article). Makes me wish I would have married into a rich family and coming running home “to the rescue” when her multimillion dollar father was passing away.
P.S. With what little money Grimes is raising, shouldn’t he be saving those few dollars in Fed-ex for his campaign? I mean sending a package Fed-ex has to take up at least 20% of his budget.
Schmidtke will surprise everyone. It is all TV. His ads are the only one that address issues. All others are couched some pagan creed about being more christian than everyone else. I hope everyone votes against those who take God’s name in vain, for their own selfish political purposes.
The only ones doing that are Love and Woods.
How is stating in a campaign commercial that you a Christian taking “God’s name in vain.” I’m not saying that I approve of such ads, only that I don’t think doing so violates a Commandmant.
As of this morning on the Wiregrasslive.com blog there is a comment about a new political poll taking last week. Showing how Love and Grimes are the top two candidates in the 2nd District race. Granted there are six candidates in the race. Some of them with large personal bank accounts to loan themselves and they know people with similar bank accounts who can give them money. Nothing at all wrong with this, but for all the money that is being raised by Love, or giving himself, he is showing only 28%, while Grimes who is not raising big dollars, nor run a campaign for best in Sunday School, is frugal with his spending and has 20% of the vote. If Grimes was raising funds and airing on television constantly how much more of the vote would he gain? This would seem to indicate that there are a lot of people who have met Grimes and like him. If the primary turns out to have a run off between these two it will be interesting to see what happens when one loans himself another $449,000 for 28% of the vote versus one who has probably spent less than $20,000 garners as much of the vote. What is this to say about someone who we send to Washington to watch over our money? Who will be frugal?
Frederick, I am very skeptical about such a poll. There is no explanation for such a Grimes rise. Is there a link to the actual poll you could provide?
I think – in the end – it’ll be Love and Smith/ Smith and Love in the runoff – just like everyone predicted months ago. The demographics say that.
I agree, unless Woods edges out Smith, it will be a Love Smith race after June 3. The poll that shows Grimes having big numbers….that is not realistic.
[...] Here is a promised follow-up to this post. [...]
For #10, it’s more likely that it would be Woods edging out Love – they have the same voters they are fighting over. Harri Anne’s are different people. But otherwise I agree with you.
The idea of getting administrative backup and support is a good one, this idea can make a lot of changes in the administration. I would like to thank the author for posting such information.