Tuesday, February 1, 2011

2010 Campaign Finance Report for MN House District 53A

The Campaign Finance & Public Disclosure Board published its 2010 candidate campaign finance reports.

I have no axe to grind here, but I thought readers would be interested in seeing a comparison of the candidate reports for 53A. I started with a cash balance of over $5000 that is not included in the comparison. My opponent loaned herself $5,000 (the maximum allowed) and paid it back; both of her transactions are listed in the chart. The large "non-campaign" disbursements from my campaign mostly came from a session wrap-up mailing in the spring of 2010.

The one thing that differentiated the two campaigns is the heavy reliance on big donors by the GOP candidate. Sixty-three percent of my contributions came from donors who gave less than $200. My opponent collected 33% from this group and 67% from donors who contributed $200 or more.

I haven't checked yet, but the amount of "independent expenditures" made by outside groups and political parties was likely greater than $50,000 and perhaps as much as $100,000.

Receipts
Gardner Runbeck
Individual contributions 21,931 24,701
contributions > $200 8,011
16,510
contributions < $200 13,920
8,191
Lobbyist & PAC contributions - 850
Political party contributions 5,000 3,505
Public subsidy 6,412 5,634
Loans payable - 5,000
$ 33,343 $ 39,690

Disbursements
campaign 31,166 31,939
non-campaign 4,424 266
other - 6,500
$ 35,590 $ 38,705