Back from another trip to the Senate's public records office, which is busy processing the dozens of campaign finance reports that senators and candidates had to mail by a July 15 deadline.
Most of the reports, which cover receipts and expenditures for the second quarter of 2009 and often run into the hundreds of pages, aren't yet available for viewing. (Unfortunately, the Senate doesn't mandate electronic filing of campaign finance reports). But here are some useful nuggets of information from campaign reports I did view earlier today.
Alabama: Talk about low overhead. Republican Sen. Richard C. Shelby, a shoo-in to win a fifth term in 2010, raised $1.4 million and spent just $96,000 doing so. That's less than 7 percent of his second-quarter receipts. Even at this early stage, most campaigns spend a larger percentage of their receipts on fundraising and staff expenses. (For example, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid raised $3.3 million and spent $976,000, or about 30 percent.) Shelby has a whopping $14.8 million cash-on-hand as July began.
Arizona: John McCain's presidential campaign ended in defeat, but it had enough leftover cash to help McCain boost his campaign coffers as he seeks a fifth term in 2010. McCain raised $1.6 million in the second quarter, of which $900,000 came from his 2008 presidential campaign account. McCain also took in $166,000 from McCain Leadership Fund, a joint fundraising committee that shares its proceeds between McCain's campaign committee and his leadership PAC, Country First PAC.
Florida: Republican Sen. Mel Martinez isn't seeking re-election in 2010, and so he's unloading some of his campaign treasury to help colleagues who are. Martinez's campaign committee gave $4,000 apiece to a dozen Republican senators on 2010 ballots, including Shelby and McCain. The others are Robert F. Bennett of Utah; Jim Bunning of Kentucky; Richard M. Burr of North Carolina; Tom Coburn of Oklahoma; Michael D. Crapo of Idaho; Jim DeMint of South Carolina; Charles E. Grassley of Iowa; Johnny Isakson of Georgia; Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; and David Vitter of Louisiana. Martinez also gave $2,000 to Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who is seeking to succeed him in the Senate.
Kentucky: Bunning raised just $302,000 in the reporting period, a poor total for a vulnerable incumbent and about half of the take of Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, who's formed an exploratory committee to seek the Republican nomination but says he won't challenge Bunning in a GOP primary. Bunning raised about $198,000 from individuals and $79,000 from political committees.
Minnesota: Democratic Sen. Al Franken was sworn in last week after a grueling, eight-month recount of votes in an exceptionally close race last November. But it didn't empty his campaign account. Franken had $808,000 left in his campaign committee after raising $2.2 million and spending $1.9 million in the second quarter -- a lot of that on legal expenses related to the recount.
Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Senate Victory 2010, a joint fundraising committee that Democratic officials organized to assist the re-election of Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter, raised nearly $400,000. It then gave $214,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $174,000 to Specter's campaign committee. Donors included several executives of Comcast, the telecommunications company headquartered in Philadelphia, and Coventry, an insurance company that is also based on Philadelphia.
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