The first quarter financial reports are out, and Democrat Connie Brennan is making an impressive first showing in her run for the 59th House of Delegates seat. (In the interests of full disclosure, I should disclose that I am helping Connie with her campaign on an unpaid basis, and I have sent her a contribution.)
And Watkins Abbitt, an independent who aligns with the Republicans, had a lousy first quarter. Go to http://www.sbe.virgi... to find the reports.
On January 1, 2007, Connie Brennan had raised $0 for her campaign. Abbitt had $25,445.76 in the bank.
And in the first quarter, Connie outraised Abbitt by a large margin.
Connie began raising some money in January, and did not announce her campaign until March 12. During the first quarter, Connie raised $58,980.02, and loaned her campaign $100 (probably just enough to open the account). Her family contributed $20,000, and she received in-kind contributions of $6,000. She had actual money donations of over $100 from 55 donors, for a total of $47,603.50. (Taking out the family contributions, that is 53 donors totaling $27,603.50.) She had contributions of $100 or less from 100 people, totaling $5,376.52. She ended the quarter with cash on hand of $39,966.17.
Just for comparison, when Allen Hale ran in 2003, his total contributions were about $32,000. So Connie raised more in contributions in the first quarter alone than Allen raised during the entire campaign.
Watkins Abbitt, on the other hand, started with $25,445.76. He received 13 contributions of cash, totaling $7,700. They were virtually all from PAC's or lobbyists -- the American Insurance Association, the Virginia Automobile and Truck Dealers PAC, Sprint, Embarq, various Richmond law firms. He had an in-kind contribution of $55 (the report doesn't say what it was). He had no contributions under $100. His major financial event came when he loaned his own campaign $50,000 right at the end of the period. He ended the quarter with $77,934.50 in the bank -- about double Connie's total. But that's because he loaned himself that $50,000 on March 26. My guess is that he heard that Connie was raising good money, and he knew that it would look really bad if she had more money in the bank than he did.
If the only reason why your report doesn't look disastrous is that you have loaned your campaign money, you're not doing very well.
Looking back at Abbitt's financial reports from past campaigns, he won't get small contributions, and most of the money won't come from within the district. He'll be the PAC-man. And he'll probably end up with $100,000 or more in PAC contributions.
Connie needs to keep it up. Her campaign should have raised at least $150,000 by the end of the second quarter. She won't be getting the corporate PAC contributions, or the money from corporate lobbyists. So all good Democrats who read this -- go to her website and contribute. http://www.conniebre... $50 at a pop. $100 at a pop. That's how she'll have to do it, and she will.