A campaign finance comparison in the GOP Senate race

Most candidates would prefer Mike Castle's decades of wins (& name recognition) and a six figure bankroll to Christine O'Donnell's 2 prior losses and $24,000 in debt with less than $2500 on hand. I don't know if Christine O'Donnell considers herself an underdog,but the campaign finance reports reflect that possibility.

Looking at the numbers for cash raised, I was surprised to see that what is available as documented on the OpenSecrets website has Castle only out fund-raising O’Donnell a little better than 2-1 . This appears to be for the period since the 2008 election.

The cash on hand line of the raised and spent report below shows the financial disadvantage O’Donnell faces. Castle had $852,689 on hand when last reported ( the date is not supplied on OpenSecrets.Org,but the figures appear to match the 9-30-2009 filing Castle’s campaign did with the FEC) and O’Donnell had $2,462 on hand as of 3-31-2009. Possibly as telling for campaign stability is that Castle has zero debt and O’Donnell’s most recent report showed $24,298 in debt.

CONGRESSIONAL RACES IN 2010:
Select an election cycle:
Race All Candidates AmountRaised
Senate Michael N. Castle (R) $257,619
Christine O'Donnell (R) $123,686


http://www.opensecrets.org/races/election.php?state=DE


Total Raised and Spent
Michael N. Castle (R)
Raised: $257,619
Spent: $267,674
Cash on Hand: $852,689
Last Report: Not available

PAC contributions $234,250 (91%)
Individual contributions $18,554 (7%)
Candidate self-financing $0 (0%)
Other $4,815 (2%)

Christine O'Donnell (R)
Raised: $123,686
Spent: $120,964
Cash on Hand: $2,462
Last Report: March 31, 2009

PAC contributions $1,750 (1%)
Individual contributions $108,015 (87%)
Candidate self-financing $716 (1%)
Other $13,205 (11%)

NOTE: All the numbers on this page are for the 2009 - 2010 House election cycle and based on Federal Election Commission data available electronically on Tuesday, November 10, 2009.

http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?id=DES2&cycle=2010



For 6-30-2009 and 9-30-2009 the FEC report indicates failure to file for O’Donnell.

The 3-31-2009 quarterly report filed 4/15/2009 also showed O’Donnell’s campaign to be over $24,000 in debt. While debt can sometimes reflect money a candidate had loaned his/her campaign in this case much of it appears to be vendors . Some of these examples are $4,018 to Airport Business Center for rent, $3,275 to Get Kinetic for a video shoot and $5,275.91 Koch & Hoos ,LLC for accounting services. Logistically, I would think this kind of debt is more problematic than candidate loans, since it is possible these vendors may withhold future service or the outstanding debt may make it more difficult to transact business with other vendors who may have concerns about repayment.

Here is the link to the 3-31-2009 report:

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00449595


The loans are reported on pages 23-27 of a 30 pages PDF.


Here is the link to the report for Castle's House campaign for the period ending 9-30-2009. The only filing for his Senate campaign is the filing of candidacy in Oct 2009

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C00254938



Here is the link to the FEC homepage,if you want to research deeper:

http://www.fec.gov/

I was unable to locate O'Donnell's 2010 campaign website and attempts to access her 2008 website took me to Yahoo search.


Here is Castle's campaign website:

http://www.castlecampaign.org/