With nine days to go until ballots re in the mail, not all of the 48 candidates for Congress had to file quarterly reports with the Federal Election Commission. Not all are showing how much they raised and how much they spent during the first three months of the year. That’s because most of the candidates didn’t file until after Congressman Don Young died. They waited until April 1, avoiding the reporting requirement.
Nick Begich, the Republican who filed in late October for Congress, has receipts of about $1,045,100 and has spent $160,000, leaving him with about $885,153 cash on hand for his bid to fill the seat left vacant by Congressman Don Young.
Chris Constant, a Democrat contender who filed in mid-February, raised a respectable $107,816 and has burned through $12,723. He had $95,092 cash on had at the end of the March 31 reporting period.
Gregg Brelsford, a candidate who has no party affiliation but leans left, raised $43,476, spend 28,262, and has $15,214 cash on hand. Randy Purham raised $1,524, spent over $5,486, and has no cash on hand.
The remainder of the field — including well-known names Sarah Palin, Al Gross, and Tara Sweeney — have no financial reports due because of their late filing strategy.
Ballots for the special election primary will be mailed on April 27 by the Division of Elections. For this primary, the ballots will be mail-in style and must be postmarked by June 11. There will be 48 names on the special election primary ballot, but because of the awkwardness of the timing of this elections, campaign analysts won’t know the strength of most of the candidates in terms of their ability to raise money and spend it effectively. Most will not raise or spend enough to be required to report.
The late Congressman Don Young had raised a modest amount of cash for his reelection campaign before he passed. In the five quarters since January of 2021, he had raised $665,724, $203,571 of that from political action committees.
Federal regulations limit contributions to a candidate’s campaign to for U.S. Senate or House of Representatives to $2,900 per election.
