The deadline for first quarter fundraising arrives at the strike of midnight and, for some candidates for federal office, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Take the Connecticut Senate race. While it didn’t make Chris Cillizza’s list of campaign finance reports to track, this could be a make-or-break quarter for Republican Rob Simmons. According to this month’s Q poll, he’s already lost frontrunner status to Linda McMahon (who, unlike Simmons, has been flooding the airwaves with commercials.) In order to compete with her $50 million campaign chest, he’ll need a good haul of cash.
Republican Peter Schiff’s numbers will be telling as well. All those money bombs have to add up to something. The first quarter fundraising report will be Democratic frontrunner Richard Blumenthal’s debut filing — he joined the race after the last filing deadline in January when Chris Dodd dropped out.
In the Congressional races, the numbers in the Bernier-Caligiuri 5th District slugfest will be telling, though last quarter, wealthy Litchfield businessman Mark Greenberg topped the GOP field, thanks to a $150,000 personal loan to his campaign. (According to the candidates’ year-end filing on Dec. 31, 2009, Bernier had $203,392 on hand, Caligiuri had $70,388 and Greenberg had $256,226. Democratic incumbent Chris Murphy, the man they all want to unseat, had $941,694 on hand.)
In the 2nd District, Republicans Daria Novak and Matt Daly are going to have to boost their fundraising totals if they hope to oust Democratic U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, who had $1.136 million in his campaign account at the close of 2009.
Fourth District incumbent Jim Himes led the Connececticut delegation in the all-important cash-on-hand sweepstakes, with $1.276 as of Dec. 31. His closest competitor, Republican Dan Debicella, had $219,937.
The pauper of the delegation was 3rd District U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, with just $59,382 in the bank — which was still about $55,000 more than Republican opponent Jerry Labriola Jr.
However in politics, fortunes can change in an instant and the numbers will surely tell an important story.