FEC Week: Q1 2022
a Primary School tradition
Once again, it’s FEC week! Well, it’s a week after the deadline, but this is what happens when the filing deadline is 11:59 PM on a Friday night and we have close to two hundred candidates to watch.
CA-13: Assemb. Adam Gray will have plenty of money as he pursues this Central Valley seat. Thankfully, Phil Arballo, the 2020 nominee against Devin Nunes in a nearby congressional district, will be able to put up a fight. Arballo isn’t a progressive, but Gray is a hardcore centrist raking in donations from lobbyists and even Republican politicians.
CA-15: This was a rough quarter for San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa. He started with a bang last quarter, raising $421K to Assemb. Kevin Mullin’s $180K, but Mullin was evidently fundraising for a marathon while Canepa was sprinting. Everyone’s behaving like this will be a runoff between the two, but Burlingame City Councilor Emily Beach is sitting on some money now. If she spends it all on a Hail Mary, Canepa could be in trouble, either because he’d be at risk of losing his runoff spot or because he’d be forced to counter her and start the march to November with nothing in the bank.
CA-16: Anna Eshoo, who has a district that’s half new to her, may be vulnerable, but the challengers she drew can’t even be called the B team. At least the only remotely progressive one of the bunch, Ajwang Rading, is back to raising money again.
CA-21: This race, if it ever started, was over the minute Eric Garcia didn’t get nominated for the CA-22 special election, but it’s extra over with these fundraising numbers.
CA-29: We’ll say what we say every quarter. Angelica Dueñas isn’t raising money, and that doesn’t seem to have any bearing on her chances. She got Ground Game LA support early this cycle, she was endorsed by Teamsters Local 630 this week, and she’s doing it all on no budget.
CA-32: Shervin Aazami continues to raise far less money than he needs. You can’t pull off the Dueñas/Kim strategy in Malibu and the West Hills. To our surprise, Aarika Rhodes didn’t see a huge fundraising bump from going full Bitcoin. In fact, she raised less than $4,000 directly from crypto sources this quarter. Maybe crypto traders have just had less money to spare this year. She did get a $2,000 check from Andrew Yang personally, which is pretty funny.
CA-34: David Kim, like Angelica Dueñas, is running a campaign that’s all ground game.
CA-37: This is a legitimate surprise. State Sen. Sydney Kamlager, by all indications the undisputed and overwhelming frontrunner for this district, only raised $256K. She was, in fact, nearly beaten out for the top fundraising slot, by ex-LA City Councilor Jan Perry, who only entered the race Feb 9. Now that Perry has all this money, maybe she can update her campaign website from the personal website she’s been using since 2020. You may recognize a new name on this list—that would be Michael Shure, internet news journalist. Shure has worked with Al Jazeera, i24, and The Young Turks, which he has been with for over two decades, and where he is often referred to as (sigh) “Epic Politics Man”. Shure is doing all the politics things you associate seriously running for office with, but we’re not really sure what he’s doing here. The actual progressive protest vote in this race is Daniel Lee, and Shure’s hasty bullet point issue positions aren’t enough to challenge Lee on that front.
CA-42: Yeah, this is about what we expected. Cristina Garcia isn’t a hopeless nobody, even after her numerous controversies, but she’s also facing that minor problem of no one thinking she’s going to win, which tends to hamper fundraising. Meanwhile Robert Garcia is still raking in the cash and will perhaps even have enough by November to warrant the extravagant excess of paying LA TV rates.
CA-50: Kylie Taitano’s campaign is one of the quieter progressive fights right now. Scott Peters is awful—even in 2012, when San Diego was not nearly as Democratic as it is now, he stuck out for his conservative leanings. Now, after helping lead last year’s fight to kill prescription drug pricing reform, Peters is a renewed enemy, and has a new district that clocks in at 60-32 Biden. Taitano’s fundraising so far leaves something to be desired, but it’s not that bad for someone who just entered the race. She’s not close to unsalvageable, and, considering that she got a later start, may be focusing more on local hand-shaking than fundraising—she’s earned the endorsement of a few local Democratic clubs, most notably La Jolla Democratic Club and the San Diego Progressive Democratic Club. She also came close to preventing an official party endorsement for Peters. Since there are two Republicans running, Taitano can probably slip through into the runoff with a third of the Democratic vote. It’s a tough order, but “make the runoff now, build up the money to actually compete later” might be her best bet now, especially in light of Peters beating a very long shot progressive challenger 49% to 16% during the 2020 primary.
CO-01: Last week the Colorado Working Families Party took the unprecedented step of un-endorsing Neal Walia, saying that he “is not committed to running a serious campaign”. Now we see why. Sure, it probably wasn’t entirely about fundraising, and the COWFP also cited “hostile behavior”, but if he’s only raising $40K a quarter this late in the game, he is not winning. Diana DeGette skates again.
CT-01: Normally, progressive challengers either start with one big quarter, then burn through their contacts and never match that level again, or hitch themselves to a larger organization that can keep feeding them donors and build up a large online operation. Muad Hrezi continues to be the exception. Granted, Hrezi’s spent close to $35,000 last quarter on fundraising to be able to put up these figures, but consistently pulling in over $150K isn’t easy. He’s now stockpiled $200K, which isn’t really enough to come close to John Larson, who has close to $900K, in an ad war, but the Hartford area is relatively cheap and Connecticut primaries have low turnout—he’s going to have enough to compete in the home stretch.
FL-10: In Q3 of 2021, Maxwell Frost outraised establishment choice Randolph Bracy, a state senator, by a margin of $169K to $103K, and it was a surprise. When Frost outraised Bracy $397K to $90K, a ratio of 4:1, in Q4, we were flabbergasted. Now that it’s $350K to $65K, we don’t even know what to say. That’s a lot of money for a grassroots candidate to be able to raise every quarter! Even more importantly, that’s insanely terrible fundraising for a state senator running with the support of every local political player. It doesn’t raise any eyebrows that Terence Gray, a minister who never raised all that much money to begin with, is slipping. But Bracy should not be barely putting together more money than Gray. Not to be too cynical, but inquiring minds want to know if Bracy’s sudden public interest in cryptocurrency has anything to do with his campaign stockpiles falling hundreds of thousands behind Frost’s. And Jeffrey Boone is a new candidate; he’s a Bitcoin miner (no, stop it, go away, there are too many of you.)
FL-20: Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a woman of indeterminate wealth, obtained through indeterminate means, is clearly anticipating a tough rematch with Dale Holness, casually tossing another half million into her campaign account. (Though it’s actually $568,000, the bizarre specificity of which is another mystery we do not expect to be solved). As for Holness, his second shot is not off to a promising start. This would have been his worst quarter in the special election, which he ended up losing to Cherfilus-McCormick by five votes.
FL-22: Pro-tip for candidates: only announce right before the filing deadline if you’ve got an obscene amount of money lined up. Jared Moskowitz had an obscene amount of money lined up.
GA-07: Killing Build Back Better is a profitable endeavor, as Carolyn Bourdeaux has shown. $600K isn’t chump change. Unfortunately for Bourdeaux, and fortunately for House Democrats’ ability to do things, it’s no match for Lucy McBath’s money; the second-term congresswoman raised about $200K more than her colleague despite representing very little of this district. On top of which, she spent about $100K more, giving McBath her first real cash on hand advantage of the cycle, of about $750K. Get ready for a brutal ad war on Atlanta TV. State Rep. Donna McLeod is still campaigning, as far as we can tell, but she’s not doing anything that involves money.
GA-13: This is…not the quarter we’d hoped for from ex-state Sen. Vincent Fort. Fort, who recently released an introductory ad, might be moving into a more active period now, but he’s just not bringing in small-dollar donors as of yet. We also have to talk about how South Fulton City Councilor Mark Baker filed his disclosure. What the FEC form literally says is that he raised over $100K, $107K of which was self-funding. But we just straight up don’t believe him. It’s all listed as “in kind” money, which is then repeated in disbursements. In other words, he claims to have given his campaign $107K of non-financial help, which was doled out in one $100K chunk and one $7K chunk. Normally in-kind candidate self funding is listed with an exact dollar amount, and the goods and/or services provided. We’re pretty sure these forms are just wrong.
HI-01: Sergio Alcubilla looks like a decent candidate, but he needs to get his name out for voters to even know he exists, even if Ed Case isn’t raising a lot. His $50K first quarter was a passable start in that regard, but $26K is bad, bad news.
IL-01: All we wanted from this quarter was some information about which candidates had a chance, and we got it. Pat Dowell raised the most money, and her donor rolls are full of her fellow Chicago Aldermen—7 of them. We all knew she was a frontrunner before this, but that $377K only confirmed it. Businessman Jonathan Swain has only minimal political connections, but that $356K is enough for him to matter in this race. Nonprofit exec Karin Norington-Reaves is Bobby Rush’s choice; she’s a real candidate no matter what—and that $291K isn’t bad; in fact, it’s nearly as good as Dowell and Swain. Jonathan Jackson’s $145K isn’t great, but the Jackson name still has plenty of juice. And finally, state Sen. Jacqueline Collins’s $69K is pretty bad, enough so that we’d normally group her in the bottom tier, but she only had half the quarter to raise that money, so she’s probably more comparable to Jackson, especially because she has actual experience and name recognition in Chicago politics. But as for Nykea Pippion McGriff, Charise Williams, and Stephany Rose Spaulding, that’s not enough money to force your way into relevancy. None of the candidates who were running before Rush retired picked up their game either.
IL-03: After Chicago Alderman Gilbert Villegas blew past progressive state Rep. Delia Ramirez $386K to $113K last quarter, we were bracing for the worst, but Ramirez almost closed the gap here. Sure, that cash on hand advantage is daunting, but it’s not nearly as bad as it could be.
IL-06: Oh no, Marie. Oh, no.
IL-07: It’s hard to call outraising the incumbent 2:1 a bad quarter, but we’ve always believed in blazing new ground here, so let’s attempt it. Danny Davis doesn’t need money—he’s an incumbent and a political brand unto himself. It’s Kina Collins who needs to do the work of introducing herself to voters, and it’s hard to do that on $126K. Maybe not totally impossible, but that primary date is coming up fast.
IL-08: Junaid Ahmed is doing pretty well. $200K is nothing to sneeze at, and it looks like his campaign is using it to hum along. We’re not saying this race has upset potential exactly, maybe surprise-close-finish-that-turns-heads-potential. As for Raja Krishnamoorthi? We’re just excited to see how high he can go.
IL-13: Yeah, this primary is beyond done. Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski it is.
IL-17: What is happening here? Eric Sorensen and Jonathan Logemann both at least crossed six figures, and raised the kind of money that would put them in the second tier for most open seats, but beyond that? A barren financial desert. You could send any fundraising consultant from Chicago out to Rockford and watch them clean up. Unlike a lot of seats we cover, this one could easily be competitive in November, so…yikes.
KY-03: Bafflingly bad quarter for state Rep. Attica Scott, especially with the primary coming up soon. State Sen. Morgan McGarvey having close to $1 mil on hand would be bad news for even an opponent who wasn't having Scott’s financial troubles.
MD-04: Wow, $611K from former Rep. Donna Edwards. We didn’t really know what to expect from Edwards after entering this race late, and doing so after 2 failed campaigns. But that woman can still raise money. Glenn Ivey’s $294K is sad in comparison. In fact, if he hadn’t done that $150K of self funding, he’d be behind in cash on hand right now. With state Del. Jazz Lewis out of the race, this is looking like Edwards’s race to lose.
MD-05: Last cycle, Steny Hoyer proved himself weak, but Mckayla Wilkes’s campaign was too hampered by budget issues to really capitalize on that. Those issues are, if anything, worse this time around.
MD-06: Ben Smilowitz entered our radar because he came out of nowhere and raised almost $50K last quarter. He will now exit our radar.
MI-11: Andy Levin continues to fall behind, which is a shame to see. While Levin would be behind anyway, Haley Stevens was the first candidate on this list so far benefitting from AIPAC’s newfound interest in congressional elections. AIPAC (we don’t have to explain who they are, right? Big time lobbying group for Israel’s increasingly right-wing government) has gotten more overtly interested in electoral politics after an Israel-skeptical left made itself known in 2018, and DMFI made sputtering efforts to halt them in 2020. AIPAC first began bundling (soliciting campaign contributions for a candidate, then turning them over later) for opponents of the left that year, funneling hundreds of thousands for Ilhan Omar’s opponent. After that questionably successful test run, they’re scaling up, endorsing over 300 members of Congress, and bundling for many Democrats in primaries against leftists. Levin isn’t a leftist, but apparently his general support of Palestinians having rights has pissed off AIPAC enough to get involved (never mind that Levin is also a staunch Zionist, just one who doesn’t think Israel should be gunning down Palestinian children.) AIPAC bundled an incredible $297,341 for Stevens, on top of which the AIPAC-affiliated Pro-Israel America PAC added another $38,161.
MI-12: Of Rashida Tlaib’s many challengers, only one actually filed something with the FEC that we can use. Ex-state Rep. Phil Cavanagh never filed to run for Congress after saying he was going to; ex-state Rep. Shanelle Jackson just didn’t file a report with the FEC; Michelle Wooddell filed for Congress, raised $36K, then decided on a state House bid instead; and Lathrup Village Mayor Kelly Garrett didn’t start her campaign until after the filing deadline, leaving only Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey. She raised $235K, far more than her previous campaign for Congress. Her secret? Like Stevens, she was the beneficiary of AIPAC money, about $107K of it between AIPAC and Pro-Israel America PAC. Even with AIPAC providing half her donors, Winfrey still couldn't come close to Tlaib.
MI-13: Portia Roberson and Michael Griffie both had good quarters, but look at state Sen. Adam Hollier, raising over $500K. That’s especially impressive in Detroit, where campaigns are often run on the cheap. Adrian Tonon is probably done based on these numbers, and Sharon McPhail’s only hope now is name recognition, but John Conyers III isn’t in as bad a shape as this chart implies. It’s almost a little unfair to include him, because he started his campaign 3 days before the filing deadline, but that’s when he decided to announce, so he’s counted.
MN-04: Amane Badhasso raised even more than the $288K last quarter that got Betty McCollum scared, but once she got scared, McCollum started raising money. Sub $500K doesn’t count as too much for an incumbent, but it’s enough to ensure that she’ll be able to outspend Badhasso.
MN-05: Why is Ilhan Omar so averse to raising money? She didn’t do this last cycle. Last cycle she was raising over $400K a quarter and had well over $1 million banked. Now, she’s letting herself get outraised, and barely has any cash on hand advantage. Unlike 2020, it doesn’t look as though AIPAC is helping out here; all that money was Don Samuels’s work.
MO-01: Well, in case you were wondering whether that rando who filed to run against Cori Bush was legit: no. State Sen. Steven Roberts launched his campaign after the filing period ended, so he doesn’t appear here. Speaking of which, Bush also needs to up her fundraising game if Roberts is going to be viable.
NV-01: Amy Vilela is reliable at this point for clocking in $100K quarters. More interesting is Dina Titus, who has evidently realized that she might want money on hand, either for the primary, or for the general election, which she now thinks will be a challenge.
NJ-08: Bob Menendez’s kid has all the money in the world, and David Ocampo Grajales, his progressive opponent, has none. As is the way in the machine state of New Jersey.
NJ-10: The disparity isn’t nearly as bad here as it was in the 8th, but it’s still not good, and Imani Oakley’s problem is that she’s been burning through cash as fast as she can earn it. Ideally you have much more than $108K at your disposal as you stare down the primary date.
NY-01: While Jackie Gordon is the choice of national Democrats, and swamping her two opponents in fundraising—neither Bridget Fleming nor Kara Hahn raised half of her $342K—she’s still caught in the odd situation of trailing both in cash on hand.
NY-03: Wow! This is terrible! Rob Zimmerman, the DNC member with all those anti-immigrant statements, raised nearly a million dollars, putting him ahead of recent (and wannabe) Republican Joshua Lafazan. Third place in cash on hand isn’t even Alessandra Biaggi, it’s forgettable machine goon Jon Kaiman. If there’s any good news it’s that a three-way split in the moderate Long Island vote opens up a path for Biaggi. Progressive activist Melanie D’Arrigo and businesswoman Reema Rasool are way, way behind.
NY-04: Everyone here had, at best, 6 weeks to raise that money, so no one really has a bad number here. Everyone’s in the mix, basically. Even by that standard, Laura Gillen’s in her own world. This, plus the poll with her at 40%, confirm she’s the frontrunner. Kevin Shakil-Mendez, who we hadn’t covered before, hosts a radio show about Islamic subjects.
NY-10: Elizabeth Kim came out of nowhere. We’re not entirely sure what to make of her, but her issues page gives off centrist vibes, especially the healthcare section. Kim has more money than your typical challenger, but, even with district changes, Jerry Nadler is an Upper West Side institution who will be hard to dislodge. Meanwhile, Ashmi Sheth has just petered out.
NY-11: Oh god Max Rose raised a million dollars. That’s a lot of money. We were expecting him to outraise Brittany Ramos DeBarros. We were expecting it to not be close at all. But this is beyond our expectations. The big question now is how much of that Rose is willing to spend on the primary, when he clearly doesn’t care about it and wants to be fighting the general election already. Ramos DeBarros is still on the low end of six figures, which is an impediment in New York City. If she’s got a chance it involves an impeccable ground game in Brooklyn.
NY-12: Ugh, of all the progressive challengers, why did the one who raised less this quarter than last have to be Rana Abdelhamid? Manhattan is really expensive, and this race has gotten so expensive already. Look at Carolyn Maloney—she’s finally figured out how to crank out money. Granted, she spent most of it, but it looks like, unlike previous quarters, she was spending it on useful things, like what looks like a $200K ad buy. As for Suraj Patel’s ungodly haul, we are pretending not to see it. (And chortling with glee at the fact that Abdelhamid’s team noticed that he seems to have failed to file enough valid petitions to appear on the ballot.)
NY-16: And here we come to another Squad incumbent who allowed himself to be outraised. It’s not that Jamaal Bowman’s $286K total is terrible (though it’s nothing to be proud of), but Westchester County Legislator Vedat Gashi raised almost $500K. It looks like the money is mostly from knowing a bunch of Wall Street guys, but one name we did recognize from his donor rolls? Nita Lowey, who was the congresswoman for upper Westchester County until she was pushed into retirement by a primary challenge from progressive Mondaire Jones, who now holds her seat. Hopefully this quarter was Gashi flying through all the donors he has the numbers for, or Bowman could wind up outspent, which is something you never want, even if the district is way more favorable to a politician like him than one like Gashi.
NY-22: The big takeaway from this quarter is that we have a three way race between Josh Riley, Francis Conole, and Vanessa Fajans-Turner, in descending order of financial reserves. Conole has a bunch of local politicians donating to him, but we all knew he was the local establishment’s choice already. While Vanessa Fajans-Turner trails the pack, her $151K should at least be enough to go on TV, because Syracuse is cheap.
NC-01: Well, look who’s bankrolling frequently anti-abortion congressional candidate Don Davis: Maryland Congressmen Anthony Brown and Steny Hoyer. Davis has now unambiguously pulled ahead of Erica Smith, after raising more than $100K more than she did, and ending the quarter with more than $200K over her cash on hand number. At least it’s a cheap district.
NC-04: After months of wondering whether Nida Allam’s grassroots army or Valerie Foushee’s big business ties would make them the fundraising leader in this district, the numbers are in, and the winner is…washed-up 2000s B-list celebrity Clay Aiken??? Aiken still has his showbiz ties, of course, but they didn’t come through for him in 2014. Getting back to the two candidates who this race is actually between, Allam did collect more than Foushee did, though it wasn’t the blowout that the last quarter was, which took down Foushee’s finance director. Foushe was another beneficiary of AIPAC bundling, this time for $165,499 of her $317K total—more than half.
OH-11: Oof. One of Nina Turner’s big advantages over Shontel Brown in the special was that, even as she was getting beaten up by outside spending, Turner was at least raising more as a candidate. No longer, it appears. Brown is, oddly, raising like she anticipates a tough race, but not spending like it. And Turner somehow spent $462K without going on TV, which is exactly how she lost the first time.
OR-04: This actually wasn’t as bad as we were expecting? Doyle Canning’s fundraising in 2020 was meh, and none of the “big” national groups are backing her in this race. Despite that, she raised $189K in her first quarter this time, which was enough to greatly outpace AirBnB executive Andrew Kalloch and get her a TV spot. Of course Val Hoyle was the leader, but with only $400K—not enough to swamp the field. This is looking like a real race.
OR-05: How nervous is Kurt Schrader about this race? About $1.6 mil worth of nervous. Schrader’s been stockpiling this money from various villains for years, and he finally has a chance to put it to use. We’re happy about Jamie McLeod-Skinner’s $311K quarter, but given the onslaught Schrader and his pharma allies are unleashing, it just may not be enough.
OR-06: Tech money is a scourge. It’s not enough that we’re rapidly approaching $10 million of mostly cryptocurrency-funded outside spending for Carrick Flynn, but he just had to raise $827K on his own too. Cryptocurrency guy #2 Cody Reynolds’s initial $2 million self-contribution was a loan, so we clung to the hope that he just wouldn’t spend all of it if things looked bad. Instead he spent all of it, and then another half million, with the bulk going to TV and mailers, although his $90K polling expense caught our eye. Cryptocurrency guy #3, Matt West, is not keeping pace with the big self-funder or the big tech guy, and is mostly working off reserves at this point. Kathleen Harder makes yet another self-funder in this race, and Andrea Salinas raised $342K, which is unremarkable for an establishment favorite in a congressional race but enough to stay afloat. Together they comprise a tier below the money machines, and would, in most other races, be doing very well financially. Meanwhile, Loretta Smith and Teresa Alonso Leon are out of luck. What an overpacked race—everyone living in the 6th district must be getting a 1” stack of mailers mailed to their house daily.
PA-03: Alexandra Hunt has an unreal social and small dollar operation going right now. It may or may not translate to any votes in the district (we’re guessing not really) but it is something to behold. And who’s to say if it’s actually Hunt’s presence, but incumbent Dwight Evans is trying harder than usual. He’s usually closer to half his $260K total.
PA-12: Summer Lee was never going to win a fundraising battle, but she’s at least doing alright for herself, with a $300K quarter and a lean enough operation to have nearly $400K stockpiled before the home stretch. Steve Irwin’s fundraising has blown up, all thanks to One Weird Trick ($287K in AIPAC bunding). But be skeptical of Irwin’s cash on hand number—that doesn’t include the $102K of unpaid bills he has lying around
RI-02: In case it wasn’t abundantly clear, Seth Magaziner is the man to beat in this race. That $1.4 mil was the largest amount raised by anyone not named Jessica Cisneros with a competitive primary. Magaziner doesn’t just have all of labor and many establishment politicians behind him, he’s going to greatly outspend the field. It’s a lot to overcome. Sarah Morgenthau also has a lot of money, but in this contest of blandness, getting outspent like she’s going to be isn’t a path to victory. David Segal rounds out the list of people who could actually win. Sure, $252K isn’t a lot compared to Magaziner, but it’s not bad for a guy who wasn’t officially a candidate yet. Besides, progressives in Rhode Island are used to fighting without a financial advantage.
TX-28: And now we see the impact of the last few weeks of the race: a deluge of money from donors eager to oust Henry Cuellar. Jessica Cisneros raised $1.7 mil in just a few weeks, a total reversal of financial fortune from where she started. That allowed her to outspend Cuellar at the end too. Of course, maybe it’s not a good sign that she outspent him by so much at the end and still couldn’t crack 50%. Regardless, his cash on hand advantage is basically gone.
TX-30: With such a lopsided first round of the primary, this race is pretty much over, and donors have taken note. Jasmine Crockett only has a small cash on hand advantage, and there’s no indication that she’ll be benefitting again from Protect Our Future ads, but with that kind of first-round lead, she probably doesn’t need it.
VA-08: Tech worker Victoria Virasingh’s campaign is chugging along, but raising $51K in the DC suburbs is not a recipe for success, especially when your opponent is a megamillionaire car dealership owner who moonlights as a congressman.
VT-AL: The three main candidates are all raising and saving about the same amount of money. Especially for a primary this late, this is a three-way tie, perhaps with the caveat that Kesha Ram Hinsdale is lagging a quarter behind the other two.