Republican House Candidate Kelly Armstrong Has Raised Nearly Triple What His Democratic Opponent Mac Schneider Has

The candidates for U.S. House have filed their pre-primary fundraising reports.

Democrat Mac Schneider is running unopposed in the primary. Republican Kelly Armstrong, meanwhile, is opposed by Tiffany Abentroth and Paul Schaffner who lost to Armstrong at the state convention. They’re not likely to be much competition – they got just a few dozen delegate votes between them at the convention – but complicating things is the fact that Tom Campbell’s name will also be on the primary ballot. He also lost to Armstrong at the convention and initially filed to put his name on the primary but withdrew and endorsed Armstrong.

Anyway, per the reports filed with the FEC, Armstrong has a massive fundraising advantage over Schneider. From the beginning of their campaigns through May 23, Armstrong reports raising $928,578.04.

Schneider, meanwhile, is at $224,080.70. Even if we subtract from Armstrong’s total the $300,000 of his own money he’s loaned his campaign he has still nearly tripled what Schneider has raised.

That’s probably going to be important this election cycle. With spending, both by the campaigns and third party groups, in that titanic U.S. Senate race between Republican Kevin Cramer and Democrat Heidi Heitkamp likely to swamp North Dakota’s small media market the ability of down-ballot campaigns to get the public’s attention is going to be limited. It will be expensive, too.

As for where that money came from, of the itemized individual donations Armstrong received, nearly 66 percent came from North Dakotans. For Schneider that percentage is just over 71 percent.

Schneider ended the pre-primary reporting period with $190,900.14 in cash on hand and just under $8,000 in debt.

Armstrong had $394,674.58 and $300,000 in debt, although that’s debt he owes himself.

You can read Armstrong’s report here, and Schneider’s here.