George Sinner Beat Cramer In Fundraising Last Month, But He Had To Go Out Of State To Do It

George Sinner, the candidate picked by North Dakota Democrats to challenge incumbent Republican Kevin Cramer in the US House race, put up a pretty miserable fundraising report last month. He ended the reporting period with less than $40,000 in the bank, not exactly numbers that will inspire national Democrats to think that the North Dakota House race is one they can win.

Sinner did a bit better with his pre-primary report to the FEC. In fact, he outraised Cramer in the April 1st to May 21st reporting period.

Cramer raised $109,847.50 to Sinner’s $195,493.85. But even with that advantage in the reporting period, cycle to date Sinner is not only way behind Cramer in terms of both cash on hand and funds raised but he’s behind where Democrat Pam Gulleson (Cramer’s challenger in the 2012 cycle) was at this point.

Here’s a graph showing Cramer’s fundraising in 2012 vs. 2014 as well as Sinner’s fundraising in 2014 compared to Gulleson’s last cycle:

Here’s a comparison of the cash on hand each candidate has through this FEC reporting period:

Of course, elections aren’t just about money. Just because a candidate raises the most money doesn’t mean that candidate will win. But it’s hard to imagine that a candidate at this much of a disadvantage in terms of fundraising is going to overcome a Republican incumbent running in a Republican state.

Absent some unforeseen scandal or turn of events, of course.

And it seems Sinner has ratcheted up his out of state fundraising. Over 40 percent of the itemized contributions to Sinner in this report (see it here) came from out of state. That’s compared to 24 percent in his first report of the cycle.

This reporting period, in fact, Cramer took just $6,325 from out of state contributors compared to Sinner’s $64,725. For the entire cycle, Sinner has raised nearly 40 percent of his campaign cash from out of state while Cramer has raised less than 30 percent.

Here’s the comparison of in-state versus out-of-state fundraising (itemized contributions only) for Cramer so far in the 2014 cycle: