Guest post by John Rolfe
The reporting deadline for the first quarter campaign finance reports was Thursday, and I was sure to make my quarterly pilgrimage to the FEC website to review the Second District reports. This reporting period more than any other this cycle, highlights some clear strengths and weaknesses in the money race.
Ben Loyola
This quarter appears to be the worst quarter Loyola’s had so far. He only raised $11,751 from donors (the least he’s raised) and he spent $92,297 (the most he’s spent). I wonder how long he will be willing to continue to throw his money away on this race, his personal loans make up 92% of his campaign’s total receipts this cycle. On the subject of his personal loans, I don’t recall seeing a more confusing set of transactions on a finance report. In Q1 alone, he made 7 loans totaling $226,000 and he made 2 loan repayments totaling $155,000. In Q4 of 2009, Loyola took back $445,000 of his personal money. All of this indecision with his loans leaves me wondering whether he sees his campaign as a wise investment.
Ed Maulbeck and Scott Taylor
Both candidates failed to bring in a substanial amount of money, and their reports were fairly unremarkable. This is already a seven figure race and if they can’t even raise six figures by this point, I don’t see either of them being competitive. Maulbeck ended the period with $17,878 and Taylor has $8,327 cash on hand.
Update from Scott Taylor:
Scott Taylor received almost 400 individual donations this past quarter. This number far exceeded Taylor’s competitors in a showing of great grassroots support.
“I am humbled by the time, talent, and treasure that people have contributed to our campaign. We continue to build momentum everywhere we go, and are earning every vote and every penny.” said Taylor.
Jessica Sandlin
As of this writing, I couldn’t find her report on the FEC website, but the Virginian Pilot reports that she only raised $2,234.
Bert Mizusawa
General Mizusawa actually raised more money from donors than Scott Rigell and the other Republican candidates in Q1. Mizusawa was able to raise money from all over the country, but I noticed one big problem — I didn’t see one donation from Virginia Beach or Norfolk. He seems to have done a great job of raising money from almost all of the localities in Northern Virginia, but I don’t understand how someone can make it throught two fundraising quarters without receiving at least one reportable contribution from the largest and second largest cities in the district. On a different note, you can learn a lot about a campaign by how it spends its money — I thought it was interesting to see SRCP Media, the media firm behind the Swift Boat ads in 2004, in the disbursements.
Scott Rigell
Rigell’s campaign brought in more money than Glenn Nye ($408,280 vs $363,034) for the third quarter in a row. But it looks like Scott Rigell has a little bit of a spending problem. To make his spending problem easy to understand I calculated his burn rate (the percentage of receipts that were spent) for each quarter he’s filed a report.
First, I looked at his overall burn rate with the total contributions.
• Q3 in 2009: 9%
• Q4 in 2009: 59%
• Q1 in 2010: 71%
• Total for the cycle: 42%
Next, I looked at the burn rate with just individual contributions (excluding candidate contributions and loans and PAC contributions).
• Q3 in 2009: 18%
• Q4 in 2009: 113%
• Q1 in 2010: 228%
• Total for the cycle: 98%
Scott Rigell spent 228% of the money he received from donors in the first quarter! Without all of the money he’s put in his race, it doesn’t look like his campaign would be able to stay afloat. I know Rigell is willing to spend whatever it takes to win this race, but after a while, it might not be difficult for people to accuse Rigell of trying to buy the election.
Glenn Nye has been working on building up his cash on hand, and he passed the millon dollar mark. If Rigell is serious about winning the election in November (if he wins the nomination, of course), he should probably be building his cash on hand more aggressively. Whether he raises more or spends less, it might be wise to avoid bailing out his campaign with his personal money. He may also want to take advantage of the success he’s had on Facebook and use that as a tool to expand his donor base with small donations.
In fairness to Rigell, even though his expenditures were very high, I suspect he packs his schedule with events and meet-and-greets and doesn’t spend as much time doing donor calls as many other campaigns do elsewhere.
Regarding the numbers, both Scott Rigell and his campaign manager, Jason Miyares, made statements….
From Scott Rigell:
“I continue to be humbled and honored by the support our campaign has received from the Second District. Our campaign gains momentum every day as the people who live and work in every part of the Second District express their disappointment with our freshman incumbent representative and become supporters and volunteers for our campaign. Our message of fiscal accountability, job creation and changing Congress continues to resonate with local voters, and they are ready to send me to Washington to put America on the right track.”
And, from Jason Miyares, Rigell’s Campaign Manager:
“The individual donors who have known and worked with Scott in the community for over 20 years trust Scott, and they are generously investing in our campaign for better government. Scott has matched their donations with his own money as a sign that he is 100% committed to winning this race.”
