{"id":8504,"date":"2017-09-13T08:29:10","date_gmt":"2017-09-13T12:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8504"},"modified":"2017-09-13T16:37:13","modified_gmt":"2017-09-13T20:37:13","slug":"preliminary-fundraising-totals-in-public-campaign-financing-september-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8504","title":{"rendered":"Preliminary Fundraising Totals in Public Campaign Financing, September 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Correction: The numbers for Hoan Dang in this post are inaccurate. \u00a0For updated numbers on Dang and a response by Marc Elrich, please visit our updated post<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the virtues of public campaign financing is the rapid release of financial reports for participating candidates.\u00a0 That\u2019s right, folks \u2013 for this group of candidates, there is no need to wait until January to see fundraising numbers.\u00a0 That\u2019s because when they qualify for public matching funds and request them from the state, their financial reports are released almost immediately.\u00a0 This is terrific for all data junkies like your author as well as inquiring minds among the readers!<\/p>\n

Below is a summary for the five candidates who have applied to receive matching funds from the state.\u00a0 Bear in mind the following characteristics of the data.\u00a0 First, the number of qualifying contributors means the number of contributors who live in Montgomery County.\u00a0 Non-residents can contribute up to $150 each but the state will not authorize matching funds for them.\u00a0 Second, the individual contribution amounts are the basis on which the state determines how much in public matching funds will be released.\u00a0 Third, the date of cash balance is important because it varies depending on when the applications were sent in.\u00a0 That is unlike the regular reporting dates on which financial positions are summarized at the same time for all candidates.\u00a0 And fourth, for those candidates who have only filed once (which includes everyone except George Leventhal), the cash balances do not include public funds from the state.\u00a0 To estimate the cash positions of those candidates, the cash balance should be added to the public matching funds they requested.<\/p>\n

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

What do we make of this?<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Let\u2019s start with the obvious: there are a lot of small checks out there!\u00a0 While many contributors are probably donating to more than one of these five campaigns, it\u2019s not a stretch to say that close to a thousand people will have contributed by some point in the near future.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to make comparisons with the past without exquisitely detailed research to back it up (anyone want to pay us for that?) but our hunch is that this is a larger early donor pool than in prior cycles.<\/p>\n

2. \u00a0The big story here is Council At-Large candidate Hoan Dang.\u00a0 At-Large Council Members George Leventhal (who is running for Executive) and Hans Riemer (the only incumbent running for reelection) have a combined 22 years of representing the whole county.\u00a0 But Dang had more in-county contributors than either one of them!\u00a0 How does that happen?\u00a0 Dang ran for Delegate in District 19 in 2010.\u00a0 He was financially competitive, raising $103,418, but he finished fifth out of six candidates<\/a>.\u00a0 There was no reason going into this race to believe that Dang would receive more grassroots financial support than Leventhal or Riemer.\u00a0 But so far, he has.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Dang is not the only story.\u00a0 Look at first-time candidate Bill Conway, who collected more private funds than Riemer primarily by having a larger average contribution.\u00a0 In most elections, challengers struggle to be financially competitive with incumbents.\u00a0 But the early performances of Conway and Dang relative to Riemer suggest that, at least among publicly-financed candidates, some or all of that gap may be closed.\u00a0 Our hunch is that a group of at-large candidates will all hit the public matching funds cap of $250,000 and therefore have similar budgets heading into mail season.\u00a0 The big question will then become how those totals compare to what candidates in the traditional system, like Marilyn Balcombe, Charlie Barkley, Ashwani Jain and Cherri Branson, will raise.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Where is Marc Elrich?\u00a0 The three-term at-large Council Member and Executive candidate\u00a0announced that he had qualified for matching funds back in June<\/a> at roughly the same time that Leventhal and Riemer said the same.\u00a0 Riemer followed up by filing for matching funds and Leventhal did it twice.\u00a0 Why hasn\u2019t Elrich filed more than two months after his announcement?\u00a0 One suspects that the bewildering paperwork requirements of public financing are responsible for the delay, but political types are starting to chatter about it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all for now.\u00a0 Candidates, keep those reports coming in so your favorite blog has more material for the readers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Correction: The numbers for Hoan Dang in this post are inaccurate. \u00a0For updated numbers on Dang and a response by Marc Elrich, please visit our updated post. One of the virtues of public campaign financing is the rapid release of financial reports for participating candidates.\u00a0 That\u2019s right, folks \u2013 for this group … Continue reading Preliminary Fundraising Totals in Public Campaign Financing, September 2017<\/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":[151,209,16,90,262,84],"tags":[1545,1987,1933,1547,1464,1513,1587,1508,1908,2023],"class_list":["post-8504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-council-at-large","category-george-leventhal","category-hans-riemer","category-hoan-dang","category-marc-elrich","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-bill-conway","tag-council-at-large","tag-council-district-1","tag-george-leventhal","tag-hans-riemer","tag-hoan-dang","tag-marc-elrich","tag-public-campaign-financing","tag-reggie-oldak"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2da","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8504","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=8504"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8520,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8504\/revisions\/8520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}