Serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis. © James Conner.
Updated. Amount raised, cash in the bank, amount loaned to self, and burn rate. These are the four most important summary statistics in political fundraising. By these measures, the candidates with the highest marks are Democrat John Lewis and Republican Ryan Zinke. Here, in one chart, are the numbers, assembled from newspaper stories and campaign press handouts:
Both Lewis and Zinke have raised the most money, have the most cash on hand, have loaned themselves the least money, and have low burn rates. Rosendale has the lowest burn rate, and $280,000 in the bank, but most of the money he raised came from a $250,000 loan to himself. So far, Rosendale is not that popular among the big donors he’ll need unless he plans to largely self-fund a campaign that will cost $2 million or more. Stapleton’s burn rate is astonishingly high at this point in the campaign. One possibility is that the news reports got it wrong. Another is that he’s using some of the money to retire former campaign debts.
Lewis, incidentally, received another gotcha cudgeling on fundraising from the astroturf Montana Pundit website, the result of Lewis’ gratuitously claiming a meaningless fundraising record that actually wasn’t a record. MP will club Lewis with this for the rest of the campaign, annoying his supporters and staff, but it won’t make a difference in the election. Voters intensely dislike gotcha politics and don’t appreciate the aroma of campaign operatives who throw stinkbombs.
