Friday, October 26, 2018

BREAKING: Both Candidates Raising Money At Equally-Furious Clip - >$1M/Week - But McSally Heads Into Home Stretch With $1.2M More In Bank

Both candidates for Arizona's open Senate seat raised more than $3M in the first 2 1/2 weeks of October, yet Rep. Martha McSally (R-CD2) headed into the final three weeks of the hotly-contested campaign with $2.5M in the bank compared to Rep. Kyrsten Sinema's $1.3M.

The new filings (below) are the last reports before the November 6 election, and it proves that the race is nearly even in more ways than just the polling.

McSally's campaign took in $3.6M between October 1-17, which brought its total to $16.2M. In those 17 days, it spent $4.4M ($13.7M total).

By comparison, Sinema both raised and spent about $300k less for the October 1-17 period. However, her campaign totals are higher, having received $19.3M and spent $20.3M.*

As Arizona's Politics has noted on several occasions, the ginormous amounts being spent by outside groups in this race - making it the 3rd most expensive race in the country (in a year that will be the highest-spending Congressional elections in history) - almost make any differences between the candidates' committee numbers meaningless. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, $57M has been spent on the campaign to replace the retiring Jeff Flake.

Related coverage: 
NO WINGMEN OR WINGWOMEN: @MarthaMcSally ONLY Major Senate Candidate With No Employees, Paying No Payroll Taxes

OOPS, I Did It Again: FEC Tells McSally Campaign Its "Best Compliance Team" Still Not Cutting It

* The seeming imbalance in the Sinema figures was explained earlier this year, in that Sinema started the 2017-2018 election cycle with $2.3M cash on hand and converted her House campaign committee into the Senate campaign committee. McSally started 2017 with a similar amount socked away, but had to open up a new committee for the Senate race because an audit of her House campaign committee was still ongoing at that point.

If you would like to show your appreciation for Arizona's Politics reporting, please consider donating to our pool to support OTHER journalism-related nonprofits.  

We welcome your comments about this post. Or, if you have something unrelated on your mind, please e-mail to info-at-arizonaspolitics-dot-com or call 602-799-7025. Thanks.

No comments: