CQ Politics’ Fundraising Top 10s: Best-Funded Challengers
(from CQ Politics, Thursday, February 14, 2008)
Raising enough money is one of the biggest obstacles for congressional candidates who trying to unseat incumbents. They have to compete with sitting office holders who already wield fundraising clout and enjoy other benefits of incumbency.
But some challengers do raise enough money to at least run competitively. That is expected of most of the 10 top fundraisers among this year’s candidates who are challenging incumbents of the opposite party, listed below.
This list, the result of a CQ Politics analysis of candidates’ year-end 2007 campaign finance reports filed recently with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), makes one thing clear. If you want to raise big bucks to run for the U.S. House, it helps to have done so before. Six of the 10 challenger candidates who reported the most overall receipts in 2007 were candidates for Congress in 2006, as were four of the candidates who reported having the most cash on hand as 2008 began.
If you’re a first-time congressional challenger, it can help to have served in state or local office, with experience in building networks of political supporters who can give money and assist in the raising of even more campaign cash. Other challengers have had successful careers in business and/or law — and have bulging phone directories of friends and associates who they can tap for donations up to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election. A good word or an endorsement from political party officials, interest groups and organizations of ideological activists can help too.
The list immediately below shows those opposite-party challengers who lead in overall fundraising. Below that is the list of the 10 challenger candidates who had to most remaining campaign cash on hand. Total receipts can include money that the candidate has given to his or her campaign in the form of personal loans or contributions.
CQ Politics previously examined the 10 best-funded House candidates in three other categories: those running for open and vacant House seats; those challenging incumbents in primary elections; and incumbents seeking re-election.
U.S. House Candidates challenging incumbents of the opposite party who reported the most total receipts in 2007:...
5) Jim Himes, Democrat, Connecticut’s 4th ($951,000)
Himes, who has a background in investment banking, is the leading Democratic candidate against 10-term Republican Rep. Christopher Shays . The incumbent narrowly won re-election in 2006, staving off a Democratic wave in the six-state New England region that left him its only current House Republican. More than 93 percent of Himes’ total receipts came from individual donors, so he hasn’t really tapped political action committees or his own wealth yet....
U.S. House Candidates challenging incumbents of the opposite party who had the most cash-on-hand as of Dec. 31
1) Jim Himes, Democrat, Connecticut’s 4th ($800,000)
Himes is listed above as the fifth-leading challenger fundraiser....
Full article available here:
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002670731
