{"id":9264,"date":"2018-01-18T21:04:12","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T02:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9264"},"modified":"2018-01-18T21:04:12","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T02:04:12","slug":"campaign-finance-reports-council-at-large-january-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9264","title":{"rendered":"Campaign Finance Reports: Council At-Large, January 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Now to the swarming Council At-Large race, a fascinating contest with a cast of candidates exceeding the population of several small island nations.\u00a0 In accordance with our prior post on the Executive candidates, let\u2019s review our 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 Many candidates, particularly in other races we will discuss, have been campaigning for more than a year and we want to capture that.\u00a0 Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others.\u00a0 Self-funding includes money from spouses.\u00a0 Total raised does not include in-kind contributions.\u00a0 Third, for self-financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in cash on hand (which we call adjusted cash balance).\u00a0 That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.<\/p>\n

And now, on to the financial presentation.\u00a0 (We hope this graphic can fit on your screen.)\u00a0 Two candidates \u2013 Brandy Brooks and Darwin Romero \u2013 have not filed reports at this writing.<\/p>\n

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

Delegate Charles Barkley (D-39) is a big winner here with the largest cash on hand in the race.\u00a0 He has used his unique perch as the House\u2019s point man on liquor issues to raise large amounts of money, adding to a war chest he has been accumulating for twenty years.\u00a0 But the last time Barkley had a competitive election, Facebook did not exist and black and white mailers were still in use.\u00a0 This is a big field full of hungry candidates and Barkley needs to do more than raise alcohol money to win.<\/p>\n

Council Member Hans Riemer, the only incumbent in the race, continues to excel.\u00a0 He has the highest amount raised ($219,103) and a low burn rate of 11%.\u00a0 Add to that his two terms in office, his experience running countywide, his history of influential endorsements and his campaign skills and he looks like a safe bet to return.<\/p>\n

Bill Conway has gone from being Diana Conway\u2019s husband to being perhaps the one non-incumbent candidate that his rivals say is most likely to win.\u00a0 Conway\u2019s total raise ($215,881) is almost equal to Riemer\u2019s and he actually collected more than Riemer from individuals.\u00a0 The difference is that he has spent a lot more than Riemer by employing a campaign manager from the early days of his candidacy.\u00a0 But since that campaign manager is former Raskin field staffer Doug Wallick, that was a good decision.\u00a0 Conway combines a MoCo-targeted message of education, transportation and jobs<\/a> with a likable personality and a staggering ability to learn quickly.\u00a0 So far, so good.<\/p>\n

The Council At-Large candidates pose for their Class of \u201918 picture.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Next come the others who have qualified for public financing, most of whom have done so recently.\u00a0 Evan Glass ran strong in District 5 last time, knows the county well and has a lot of fans from his service on more advisory boards and task forces than your author can count.\u00a0 Chris Wilhelm is a progressive teacher who should appeal to his union, the powerhouse MCEA.\u00a0 Will Jawando is a skilled candidate who would be in the House of Delegates now if it weren\u2019t for Jamie Raskin\u2019s 2014 slate.\u00a0 Gabe Albornoz combines several networks \u2013 party, Leggett supporters and folks who have known him from his day job at the Recreation Department \u2013 and is liked by basically everyone who meets him.\u00a0 A group of nine candidates \u2013 Glass, Wilhelm, Jawando, Albornoz, Hoan Dang, Seth Grimes, Shruti Bhatnagar, Mohammed Siddique and Ashwani Jain \u2013 are basically clustered together financially.\u00a0 Danielle Meitiv will be right there too because she is close to qualifying for matching funds.<\/p>\n

And then there are the rest.\u00a0 Look folks \u2013 it\u2019s popular to say that there are more than 30 candidates in this race.\u00a0 But in all truth, the number of viable candidates is at most half that number.\u00a0 To everyone who filed an affidavit or is not close to qualifying for matching funds: it\u2019s not gonna happen for you, OK?\u00a0 You\u2019re the gazelle trying to run with a pack of hungry cheetahs.\u00a0 You need to show some game or don\u2019t show up at candidate forums asking for your ninety seconds of speaking time along with the folks that are busting their rear ends and getting several hundred residents to contribute.<\/p>\n

We have a lot of questions about this data, such as: who is giving money?\u00a0 Which candidates are drawing support from specific parts of the county?\u00a0 And why aren\u2019t the female candidates doing better?\u00a0 (Of the top twelve fundraising candidates, only one \u2013 Shruti Bhatnagar \u2013 is a woman.)\u00a0 All of that analysis will have to wait as we are done for now.<\/p>\n

Next: the district council candidates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Now to the swarming Council At-Large race, a fascinating contest with a cast of candidates exceeding the population of several small island nations.\u00a0 In accordance with our prior post on the Executive candidates, let\u2019s review our methodology.\u00a0 First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just … Continue reading Campaign Finance Reports: Council At-Large, January 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":[151,355,209,90],"tags":[1545,1987,1606,1933,1513],"class_list":["post-9264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-charles-barkley","category-council-at-large","category-hans-riemer","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-bill-conway","tag-charles-barkley","tag-council-at-large","tag-hans-riemer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2pq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264","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=9264"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9271,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264\/revisions\/9271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}