{"id":9279,"date":"2018-01-22T07:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T12:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9279"},"modified":"2018-01-21T17:37:22","modified_gmt":"2018-01-21T22:37:22","slug":"campaign-finance-reports-district-county-council-january-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=9279","title":{"rendered":"Campaign Finance Reports: District County Council, January 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

In addition to the wild and woolly Executive and Council At-Large races, MoCo has two competitive District County Council elections.\u00a0 Let\u2019s have a look.<\/p>\n

Council District 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

In District 1, which stretches from Kensington in the east to Poolesville in the west, nine candidates are vying to succeed incumbent Roger Berliner, who is term limited and is running for Executive.\u00a0 But of these nine, only four look competitive at the moment and one stands out: former aide to the Comptroller Andrew Friedson.<\/p>\n

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

Friedson\u2019s lead in total raised and cash balance is as obvious as it is staggering.\u00a0 But consider these three facts.\u00a0 First, if Friedson were running in the Council At-Large race, his total raised for the cycle ($218,903) would be second only to Hans Riemer ($219,103), who is the only at-large incumbent running.\u00a0 Friedson\u2019s cash on hand ($200,622) would be second only to Delegate Charles Barkley ($232,428).\u00a0 Second, Friedson\u2019s lead is not in money alone.\u00a0 We added up the number of individual contributors each of the top four fundraising candidates had in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Potomac, Kensington, Cabin John, Glen Echo, Poolesville and zip codes 20852 (Rockville) and 20878 (Gaithersburg\/North Potomac) \u00a0to approximate in-district contributors.\u00a0 Friedson had 289 contributors in these locations, followed by Reggie Oldak (217), former Town of Kensington Mayor Pete Fosselman (195) and Meredith Wellington (92).\u00a0 Third, Friedson has accomplished this in just five months.\u00a0 Fosselman has been running for ten months, followed by Oldak (nine months) and Wellington (eight months).\u00a0 We wonder how much Friedson would have raised if he had been campaigning longer.<\/p>\n

The good news for Reggie Oldak is that she has done well in public financing and should have no problem hitting the $125,000 cap for public matching funds.\u00a0 The bad news is that it\u2019s probably impossible for her to catch Friedson because once she hits the cap, she will be limited to $150 individual checks.\u00a0 Wellington has relied on self-financing more than the other candidates and has a high burn rate (41%).\u00a0 Fosselman should have been the fundraising leader in this race.\u00a0 He was Mayor of the Town of Kensington for a decade and is plugged into Ike Leggett\u2019s network, the county developer network (he once worked for Rodgers Consulting) and what is left of the network of former Governor Martin O\u2019Malley, who endorsed him<\/a> and had his PAC max out to him.\u00a0 But Fosselman is fourth in cash on hand and faces the risk that the business community will turn to Friedson as a better prospect to win.<\/p>\n

Council District 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

In District 3, which is mostly comprised of Rockville, Gaithersburg, Aspen Hill, Leisure World, part of Norbeck and Washington Grove, former J Street Political Director Ben Shnider is taking on incumbent Council Member and former Gaithersburg Mayor Sidney Katz.\u00a0 Shnider, who is in the traditional financing system, outraised the incumbent, who is taking public financing.<\/p>\n

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

Shnider\u2019s fundraising edge, along with his endorsement by SEIU Local 32BJ<\/a>, gives his campaign credibility against Katz, who has been in county and municipal politics for decades.\u00a0 A further look at the fundraising numbers reveals two things.\u00a0 First, 76% of Shnider\u2019s fundraising has come from out of state.\u00a0 (Katz\u2019s percentage is just 2%).\u00a0 But second, and more worrisome for Katz, Shnider is starting to catch on in the district.\u00a0 When we added up the number of individual contributors from Rockville, Gaithersburg, Washington Grove and zip code 20906 (Leisure World\/Norbeck) to approximate in-district contributors, Katz had 99 and Shnider had 75.\u00a0 Shnider is the underdog in this race, but Katz needs to start working harder to hold him off.<\/p>\n

The other districts lack competition.\u00a0 District 2 incumbent Craig Rice has not been raising money and is apparently unworried about his Republican rivals in the age of Trump.\u00a0 District 4 Council Member Nancy Navarro and District 5 Council Member Tom Hucker have no opponents and are headed to reelection.<\/p>\n

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

We will get to state legislative races soon, folks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. In addition to the wild and woolly Executive and Council At-Large races, MoCo has two competitive District County Council elections.\u00a0 Let\u2019s have a look. Council District 1 In District 1, which stretches from Kensington in the east to Poolesville in the west, nine candidates are vying to succeed incumbent Roger Berliner, who … Continue reading Campaign Finance Reports: District County Council, 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":[151,165,770,60],"tags":[1545,806,2019,1547,1988,2001,1492,2023,772],"class_list":["post-9279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-council-district-1","category-council-district-3","category-pete-fosselman","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-andrew-friedson","tag-ben-shnider","tag-council-district-1","tag-council-district-3","tag-meredith-wellington","tag-pete-fosselman","tag-reggie-oldak","tag-sidney-katz"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2pF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9279","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=9279"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9287,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9279\/revisions\/9287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}