Bjorkman Ends June with More Cash on Hand Than Johnson

Pat Powers likes to talk about “The Full Dusty” but not the full story of campaign finance in South Dakota’s U.S. House race The GOP party spinster hurried Friday to point out that his sponsor Dusty Johnson raised $120K and spent $275K between his May pre-primary report and the June 30 Q2 reporting deadline. Add the $71K he brought in and $254K he burned up from April 1 to May 16, and Johnson’s Q2 totals are $191K raised and $529K spent. Yay, Dusty.

Dusty’s exertions were sufficient to vanquish his primary contestants Shantel Krebs and Neal Tapio. But whole-story readers might want to compare Johnson’s campaign finances with those of my sponsor, Democratic Congressional candidate Tim Bjorkman (see—unlike Pat, I cover both of them). Bjorkman raised $72K in the first half of Q2 and $82K in the second half. Not facing a primary, Bjorkman spent notably less, just $53K first half and $36K second.

So for Q2, Johnson outraised Bjorkman $191K to $154K and outspent Bjorkman $529K to $89K.

But check out cash on hand. As of end of business June 30, the Democrat had $218K on hand. The Republican had only $152K on hand.

Johnson has contributed $41K to his own campaign. Bjorkman has contributed $45K and loaned another $50K to his own campaign. So subtract the candidates’ own money, and you could argue that the support on hand from other people totals $123K for Bjorkman and $110K for Johnson.

Bjorkman’s cash advantage will likely evaporate, since Bjorkman steadfastly refuses PAC money, while Johnson is gladly taking cash from the Koch Brothers, the National Russian Association, and other special interests. But for the moment, Bjorkman is raising enough money to not only compete with the Republican golden boy but stand ahead of him in the cash race.

Now let’s see how much of his superior war chest Bjorkman spends on cards showing Dusty’s incredible friend Maria Butina….