The required campaign finance reports, due this weekend, are beginning to show up at the Federal Election Commission website, shedding light on which candidates for the special U.S. House of Representatives primary race have raised the money needed to get their messages out to voters.
With just 12 days left before ballots are due, it appears Sarah Palin is still a fundraising machine. Palin, who filed on April 1 to fill the seat of the late Congressman Don Young, raised the bulk of her money nationally through fundraising mills. Palin logged over 1,000 individual donations totaling more than $600,000 from places like Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Nevada, California, Georgia, Minnesota, Virginia, Maryland, and a handful from Alaska.
She has raised more money from each of the states of Texas, Florida, and California than she has raised in her home state. Read the list of Palin donors at this FEC link.
Palin received more than $30,000 from political action committees. Read the political action committees at this link.
Much of Palin’s $500,000 in expenditures are related to fundraising for things like list rental fees. Palin has not spent that much on advertising to Alaskans, possibly because with her name recognition, she doesn’t need to spent the money to get noticed. Her expenditures are at this link.
Republican candidate Nick Begich has raised over $530,000 and has loaned some extra money to his campaign. The businessman, who filed back in October, has over $716,000 in his campaign account. Nearly all of his donors are Alaskans. His donation report is at this link.
Begich has spent $302,414 on his campaign so far, much of it for travel to communities. Alaska Airlines has been one of his biggest expenditures as he has crisscrossed the state. His expenditure list is at this link.
Republican candidate Tara Sweeney raised $231,000, ended the reporting period with $149,000 cash on hand, and $53,000 in debt, so a net position of $96,000. Most of her donations are large checks from heavy-hitting business leaders inside Alaska. Her list of donors is at this link.
Republican candidate Josh Revak raised $110,800 and has $27,800 cash on hand. He has paid $9,500 to a compliance company in Virginia. Most of his checks are coming from Alaskans, many of them lobbyists and business leaders. His report is at this link.
No-party candidate Al Gross raised $545,744 and has $113,478 cash on hand. His campaign funds are a mixture of in-state and out-of-state. Gross’ donor list is here. Gross appears to be using his former Senate race list of donors to get one more drink at the well for his bid for U.S. House. Some of Gross’ fundraising came from his own political action committee, Northern Leadership Fund. That report link here.
Gross is spending a lot on newspapers. He spent nearly $3,000 with the Nome Nugget newspaper for advertising and $1,800 on Homer News and $3,000 for the Juneau Empire ads. He logged $1,650 with KTOO public broadcasting for radio ads and $1,275 for an ad in the Chilkat Valley News. The disbursement list is here.
Democrat Chris Constant has raised $150,790. His cash on hand is $82,248. His donor report is at this link.
Democrat Mary Peltola raised $81,000 and spent $48,000.
