Gulleson Maintains Fundraising Advantage Over Cramer UPDATE: Kalk Beats Cramer

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Written By:
Rob Port

Jun 1, 2012
11:39am

The reports aren’t up on the FEC website yet, but apparently Democrat and Republican House candidates Pam Gulleson and Kevin Cramer provided a copy of their reports to the Fargo Forum, and it appears that Gulleson is maintaining her fundraising advantage.

Gulleson reported raising $99,000 in the eight-week period, boosting her campaign past the half-million dollar mark in fundraising since last fall. She received about $77,000 from individual donors, mostly North Dakotans, and another $21,000 from political action committees.

Of the special interest dollars, the Blue Dog PAC gave $10,000 to Gulleson, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee donated another $1,500.

Gulleson reported $313,000 in cash on hand and no reported debt as of May 23.

Meanwhile, Republican challenger Kevin Cramer reported $57,000 in new contributions during the same eight-week period since April 1.

His total campaign fundraising to date now exceeds $310,000, predominantly from individual donors. In all, Cramer has received $3,200 – or 1 percent of his donations – from political action committees.

If you look at the giving from PAC’s, it’s pretty clear why Cramer is lagging. He remains in a disputed race with Brian Kalk who got the NDGOP’s endorsement at the state convention, and contributors who might be supporting his campaign (or Kalk’s campaign, for that matter) are sitting on their money until after the primary.

Should Gulleson continue to out-fundraiser the Republican candidate after the primary it might be time to worry about the House race, but Gulleson has polled way behind the Republican candidates in two separate polls (here and here) and there’s little doubt that once the primary is settled the floodgates of contributions from Republican supporters will open.

Meanwhile, Kalk apparently ignored a request from the Forum for his campaign fundraising. That makes me guess that it’s probably some disappointing numbers, which lines up with what I’ve heard from political insiders. Kalk is a good campaigner, but a not-so-great fundraiser.

Update: I guess I’ll eat my words on Kalk’s fundraising. He’s apparently raised $132,300 in May, more than double what Cramer raised and is basically even with Cramer in overall fundraising with over $300,000.

Of course, Kalk has also spent a lot more than Cramer. He’s got just $65,600 in cash in on hand compared to Cramer’s $132,000.