Cramer Raises $338,405 In Second Quarter UPDATE: Gulleson Raises $221,587

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Written By:
Rob Port

Jul 15, 2012
10:34pm

According to numbers filed with the FEC, Republican House candidate Kevin Cramer raised $338,405 in the second quarter (April 1st – June 30th).

Of that, $276,391 has come since his pre-primary filing (which encompassed April 1st – May 23rd).

Cramer’s Democrat opponent Pam Gulleson, who doesn’t have any numbers filed with the FEC as yet, has been putting up some impressive fundraising numbers beating Cramer through the last reporting period (though she also has a pretty intense burn rate), but Cramer was fundraising while facing a primary challenger in fellow Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk, who was actually the NDGOP’s convention endorsed candidate.

Conventional wisdom is that an unsettled race, a lot of contributors were holding off until either Kalk or Cramer emerged the victor. So one would expect, now that Cramer is the lone candidate in the race, to see some acceleration in his fundraising.

That’s just what we see.

In the 53 days from April 1st – May 23rd, Cramer raised $62,014 for a rate of about $1,170/day.

In the 38 days from May 24th – June 30th, Cramer raised $276,391 for a rate of $7,273.45/day.

With Kalk out of the race,the floodgates have opened for Cramer’s fundraising (he was always the strongest fundraiser in the six-person field of Republican House candidates), especially considering that it was only June 12th – June 30th (19 days) that Cramer was able to raise funds as the lone nominated candidate, an advantage Gulleson has enjoyed all along.

It will be interesting to see how these numbers stack up to Gulleson’s. If she comes in close, or even behind, Cramer’s numbers it’s going to be an ugly indication of flagging enthusiasm for her campaign.

In related news, Cramer also filed over $41,000 worth of bundled contributions from the Club for Growth.

Update: Gulleson’s numbers just posted, and she’s way under Cramer for the quarter.

From April 1st – June 30th, the entirety of the quarter, she raised $221,587 at a rate of $2,435/day.

For an apples-to-apples comparison of Cramer’s fundraising afer the pre-primary report (May 24th – June 30th as defined by the FEC) she raised $122,796.05 or $3,231.47/day.

That’s less than half Cramer’s rate as calculated above. That’s bad, bad news for Gulleson. It indicates that contributors may be losing faith in her ability to win (maybe not surprising as Cramer crushed Gulleson by 14 points in the last polling in the race).

One positive note for Gulleson is that she is beating Cramer in cash on hand. She ended the quarter on June 30th with $378,477.55 in the bank compared to Cramer’s $273,500.76, but again that’s not surprising as Cramer was running a primary campaign against other Republicans for all but 19 days of the quarter.