Todd Epp at KELO Radio notes that Republican Dusty Johnson has raised twice as much money for his Congressional campaign than Democrat Tim Bjorkman. Epp draws his figures from OpenSecrets.org; the Federal Election Commission provides these total figures as of September 30:
- Johnson: $1,351,951.69 raised, $954,951.85 spent.
- Bjorkman: $724,539.45 raised, $489,423.48 spent.
- Ron Wieczorek: $6,580.00 raised, $4,639.00 spent.
- George Hendrickson: zero reported.
17% of Johnson’s money has come from non-candidate committees; the biggest donors (the $5,000 club) include Koch Industries, Mike Pence’s Great America Committee, Mike Rounds’s Peter Norbeck PAC, John Thune’s Heartland Values PAC, Oregon Congressman Greg Walden’s New Pioneers PAC (sounds Commie to me!), California Congressman Kevin McCarthy’s Majority Committee PAC, and the National Automobile Dealers.
Bjorkman has famously foresworn PAC money, but he has taken $14,382.55—2% of his total—from local Democratic parties, some candidate committees, and Tim Johnson for South Dakota Inc. A much larger share of his kitty—nearly $75K, over 10%—has come from Bjorkman’s own pocket, compared to nearly $42K of self-funding by Johnson (3% of his total… and again, my advice to candidates: spend not one penny of your own money on a campaign).
For comparison, in the 2016 campaign, Republican Kristi Noem raised $2.35 million and spent $3.07 million, while Democrat Paula Hawks raised and spent $403 thousand. Thus, while in 2016, the Republican raised six times more and spent nearly eight times more than the Democrat, this year so far, before the big October push, Bjorkman kept Johnson less than a 2-to-1 fundraising advantage, and in South Dakota, we Democrats figure that if we’re raising half as much as the Republicans, we can compete!
I am looking forward to seeing the gubernatorial fundraising numbers when they are out. By the look of the laughably desperate attacks on Sutton, I am guessing his fundraising and polling are still going pretty well. Comparing Sutton to Hillary and Bernie?? Just strange.
If she wins, it will be simply because the Republican registration numbers were too overwhelming…. it sure won’t be because of her dishonest and pathetic campaign.
Great discussions in the TV tonight. That Mr. Wieczorek really got my attention and probably my vote. He decimated Mr. Bjorkman in the debates.
If elected, Noem will do as the big boys tell her, just as her SDGOP predecessors did.
So was Johnson’s attack on Tim Bjorkman during the PBS debate last night, where he said that Bjorkman was lying about not taking money from PACs, based on whether or not you count a “candidate committee” as a PAC. If so, is there a difference in principle as well as technical definition? Is a candidate committee leftover money from old races, or do they still actively fund raise to give money to other candidates like Bjorkman, and if so, why is that different from a PAC?
It is like a PAC.
No, it isn’t Grudznick. A candidate committee has genera national guidelines and isn’t a Political Action Committee.
~ What is a Candidate Committee?
Candidate committees accept contributions and make expenditures under the candidate’s authority to further their bid for election or re-election to public office.
A candidate can be the only committee member.
A candidate can only have one candidate committee
Do Candidate Committees have to register?
~ Candidate committees must be registered before accepting contributions. No candidate may accept a contribution until he or she has a candidate committee registered.
Note: a candidate for governor and a candidate for lieutenant governor can have only one committee between them; they cannot maintain separate candidate committees.