It is confirmed. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has crossed $5 Million and $3 Million milestones even before he has committed to running for re-election as Sheriff.
Monday, Arizona's Politics reported that Arpaio was "formally kicking off" his campaign for a 6th term in office, via a fundraising e-mail. Tuesday, we reported on Arpaio's amazing fundraising machine that had collected nearly $4.7 Million in the two years immediately after his last election.
Since his last campaign finance report only covered the period through Nov. 22, 2010, and his next one will not be filed for many more months - due to a now-quaint quirk in the reporting system that did not anticipate permanent campaigns - our report could only speculate that Arpaio had now crossed the thresholds since late November, based upon his past performance and conservative guesstimates.
Re-Elect Arpaio Campaign Manager Chad Willems confirmed to Arizona's Politics yesterday (via e-mail) that the campaign has indeed raised more than $5 Million in small (less than $430) individual contributions, and that the campaign coffers contain more than $3 Million. (See, Tuesday's post for overview of what the $2 Million was spent on.)
By comparison, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-CD6) had about $630,000 in the bank after his (easy) House race last November, and raised slightly more than $1 Million ($1,031,172.37) in the six weeks after he announced that he would try to replace Jon Kyl in the U.S. Senate. His cash on hand is (as of March 31, 2011) a comparatively paltry $1.5 Million ($1,570,977.90).
The comparison is somewhat relevant because Willems stated yesterday that Arpaio has not yet made a final decision on whether or not to run for the opening Senate seat. Conceivably, he could switch gears from his just announced formal re-election kick-off. (Not sure whether state and/or federal campaign finance laws would permit the re-purposing.)
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