Alaska News

Murkowski has big edge in fundraising

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has more than 20 times as much campaign cash as Republican primary challenger Joe Miller, an advantage that even the promised big spending on his behalf by the national Tea Party Express group isn't going to close.

Murkowski on Thursday was reporting to the Federal Election Commission that she had nearly $2.4 million in her campaign bank account as of the start of this month. Miller campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto said the challenger recently had about $100,000 left in his account, and bought some ads since.

The Tea Party Express group is promising to narrow the money gap before the Aug. 24 Republican primary election, saying it plans to spend "a sizable amount that could approach $1 million" to support Miller. The group began this week with what it said was a $100,000 radio ad campaign for Miller.

Alaska Congressman Don Young also holds a sizeable money advantage over Republican primary challenger Sheldon Fisher, although Young's $221,077 is just a fraction of the million-dollar-plus war chests he used to bring into campaigns.

Fisher has put $100,000 of his own money into the race and reports $36,000 in his campaign account.

SOURCES OF FUNDING

Miller, who entered the race in late April, has also put $100,000 of his own money into his attempt to topple Murkowski. He's raised about the same amount from supporters, his campaign spokesman said. Murkowski has the advantage of having raised money for this election over the past six years, but she's still outpacing him in recent months.

ADVERTISEMENT

Murkowski brought in over a half million dollars from her donors between April 1 and June 30.

Fifty-eight percent of Murkowski's total campaign money for this election has come from political action committees. Maryland-based Constellation Energy and Edison Chouest Offshore, a Louisiana firm involved in offshore oil operations, have been the top two donors to her campaign through employees and PACs. That's according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which doesn't include her newly reported fundraising since April.

The group found the next top donors for Murkowski were associated with Van Ness Feldman, a Washington law firm specializing in energy, and Exxon Mobil.

Murkowski spokesman Steve Wackowski said the senator has had contributions from 1,950 individual donors since being re-elected in late 2004 and 1,221 of them were Alaskans. That doesn't include donations from political action committees.

Alaskans represented $572,000 of the $1.4 million she received from individual donors, he said. Wackowski said he was thrilled with the fundraising.

"We had her back (from Washington, D.C) the last nine days and raised over $70,000 from Alaskans," he said.

Her challenger, Miller, expects to be getting help from the Tea Party Express, which is funded through a California-based Political Action Committee.

"If your message is good and it resonates with people, the person with the biggest bank account doesn't necessarily win," said Miller spokesman DeSoto.

The finance reports for Miller and Scott McAdams, the Democrat running for Murkowski's Senate seat, were not posted with the Federal Election Commission as of Thursday evening. Candidates can meet the federal deadline as long as they either postmarked or electronically filed the reports before midnight.

YOUNG'S RACE

Titus Bond, Fisher's campaign manger, said he's not worried about Young's money lead.

Bond said Miller needs to spend a lot of money to convince Alaska Republicans that Murkowski is bad and needs to be out of the Senate. But the case against Young has already been made, he said, in part through the anti-spending group Club for Growth's campaign spending against Young during the 2006 election.

Bond said Fisher will start radio ads next week, with television ads in the final two weeks before the Aug. 24 primary. That's when voters start to really pay attention, he said.

In addition to his personal contribution, Fisher reported raising $37,000 from donors.

Young's cash on hand is half as much as he had at this point during his last Republican primary race, when he narrowly defeated then-Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.

Young's campaign manager, Sara Schwan, declined comment on Thursday about his fundraising.

Harry Crawford, a Democrat running against Young, reported $32,470 campaign cash in the bank.

ADVERTISEMENT

Find Sean Cockerham online at adn.com/contact/scockerham or call him at 257-4344.

By SEAN COCKERHAM

scockerham@adn.com

Sean Cockerham

Sean Cockerham is a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He also covered Alaska issues for McClatchy Newspapers based in Washington, D.C.

ADVERTISEMENT