{"id":11149,"date":"2018-06-19T07:00:48","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T11:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=11149"},"modified":"2018-06-18T21:50:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T01:50:54","slug":"campaign-finance-reports-county-executive-june-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=11149","title":{"rendered":"Campaign Finance Reports: County Executive, June 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

The June campaign finance reports are in and they will be the last ones available prior to the primary. Today, we\u2019ll look at the County Executive race.\u00a0 A note on methodology.\u00a0 First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report period.\u00a0 Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others.\u00a0 Self-funding includes money from spouses.\u00a0 Third, for publicly financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in the column entitled \u201cCash Balance With Requested Public Contributions.\u201d\u00a0 That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.<\/p>\n

Below is our fundraising summary for the County Executive candidates.\u00a0 The numbers for Robin Ficker presume he has qualified for public matching funds but we have not heard definitively whether he has.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s official: David Blair has broken Steve Silverman\u2019s 2006 spending record of $2 million in an Executive race.\u00a0 (Sorry Steve but you knew it wouldn\u2019t last forever!)\u00a0 Blair\u2019s $3 million in spending, mostly self-financed, exceeds the $2.1 million combined total so far reported by the other candidates.<\/p>\n

Marc Elrich has excelled in public financing and has also had the good fortune to see the second-best financed candidate (Roger Berliner) going negative in TV and mail against the best-financed candidate (Blair).\u00a0 Combine that with the attack strategy of Progressive Maryland and Elrich can use his own money to promote himself and let others do the dirty work of bringing Blair down.\u00a0 It couldn\u2019t get any better for Elrich.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the attacks on Blair, the scale of them is becoming clear.\u00a0 Berliner has spent $51,048 on mail and $391,234 on TV, all of which had negative messaging about Blair.\u00a0 The Progressive Maryland Liberation Alliance PAC<\/a> has so far raised $100,000, most of it in union money, to oppose Blair.\u00a0 The combined amount between the two – $542,282 \u2013 is likely the most money ever spent on attacking a candidate for County Executive and the race is not over.\u00a0 To our knowledge, none of the other Executive candidates has been targeted by negative TV commercials or negative mail.<\/p>\n

The other three Democratic candidates \u2013 George Leventhal, Rose Krasnow and Bill Frick \u2013 are struggling to compete with limited resources.\u00a0 Leventhal has had money problems for the entire campaign but he is working his heart out.\u00a0 That plus his longevity and diverse base of supporters get him into the mix but he is still a long shot to win.<\/p>\n

Rumors have swirled for weeks about labor polling and MCGEO President Gino Renne confirmed them to Bethesda Magazine<\/a> on Friday.\u00a0 Renne said that Elrich and Blair were \u201cneck and neck\u201d in a number of polls and said, \u201cWhen you combine all the different polls, it\u2019s a good solid snapshot of what\u2019s going on\u2026 I would say it\u2019s statistically insignificant [between Elrich and Blair]. It\u2019s all about who can get their voters to the polls. If the election were today, I\u2019d have to call it a toss-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have written about Elrich\u2019s base before: it\u2019s a combination of anti-development activists, progressives and people living in and near Takoma Park.\u00a0 But Blair is developing a base too by consolidating those who want a different direction in county government.\u00a0 Frick and Krasnow have a similar message but they don\u2019t have the money to make it stick like Blair does.\u00a0 And so this election is turning into a contest between different visions of change: a move towards greater progressivism or a move away from tax hikes and towards more economic development.<\/p>\n

Who knows which side will win?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. The June campaign finance reports are in and they will be the last ones available prior to the primary. Today, we\u2019ll look at the County Executive race.\u00a0 A note on methodology.\u00a0 First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report … Continue reading Campaign Finance Reports: County Executive, June 2018<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,272,138,492,16,84,286,46],"tags":[1545,441,1541,1627,1938,1464,1508,1596,1480,2064],"class_list":["post-11149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-bill-frick","category-campaign-finance","category-county-executive","category-george-leventhal","category-marc-elrich","category-robin-ficker","category-roger-berliner","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-bill-frick-2","tag-campaign-finance","tag-county-executive","tag-david-blair","tag-george-leventhal","tag-marc-elrich","tag-robin-ficker","tag-roger-berliner","tag-rose-krasnow"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2TP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11152,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11149\/revisions\/11152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}