Byron Dorgan Has Raised $4 Million, Spent $500,000 In Campaign For Which He Has No Opponent Yet
That’s a lot of money:
New disclosure filings show North Dakota U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan’s campaign fund has grown to almost $4 million. …
The reports include fundraising and expenses from July 1 through Sept. 30. Dorgan raised almost $708,000 during the three months and spent about $314,000. The incumbent senator recently aired a series of television campaign ads.
That $314,000 figure is just for the last 3 months. Since the beginning of the year, according to the FEC, Dorgan has spent over $534,000 which works out to be nearly a dollar for every single man, woman and child in North Dakota. Again, on a race in which he doesn’t even have a challenger yet.
But let’s take a look at where that money is coming from. According to OpenSecrets.org, Dorgan has raised just 4% of his total campaign war chest from actual North Dakotans:
And the vast majority of his campaign money comes from big metropolitan areas, with Washington DC being right at the top of the list:
Dorgan has a lot of monetary support, but not from a lot of actual North Dakotans. Also of interest is Dorgan’s top 100 contributors. It’s an interesting list including troubled government-backed lender Fannie Mae at #33 with $17,500 in contributions this election cycle alone. Remember that our tax dollars bailed out Fannie Mae, and that Dorgan has been busy trying to convince people that it wasn’t Fannie and Freddie’s government-backed lending market dominance that led to our financial sector collapse but rather too little government regulation.
Convenient, no?
So how does that stack up to what Republicans are doing? Well, despite being well over a month out from the Labor Day deadline for a challenger set by NDGOP Chairman Gary Emineth the indecisive Governor Hoeven continues to either announce his own candidacy or get out of the way so that someone else can announce theirs. And the impact that’s having on potential Republican challengers is palpable:
Fargo architect Paul Sorum is the only declared Republican candidate for the GOP endorsement to run against Dorgan. He said he has done no fundraising yet and has received no campaign contributions.
Bismarck insurance agent Paul Schaffner has declared he wants to be the Republican candidate to run against Pomeroy. Schaffner could not be reached immediately for comment.
These gentleman can’t organize their campaigns, and can’t raise any money, until someone knows what Hoeven is going to do. And Hoeven continues, selfishly to my mind, to keep everyone in check. Meanwhile, Democrats continue to fill their war chests.
Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, North Dakota News, Politics
