The FEC Reports Commeth

Given the early state of the campaigns, one of the most commonly used indications of the health of campaigns are the FEC reports. Third-Quarter reports were due last week, and at least in regards to the Maine Senate race, they show that that Senator Collins and Tom Allen have continued their relatively steady fundraising. This quarter Senator Collins raised $1,043,000 to Congressman Allen’s 603,000 maintaining the approximately 400K gap that has existed between the two candidates in all of the fundraising reports so far, but bring the total gap to a little bit over a million. $3.1 million for Collins to $2.1 million for Allen. The last three quarters can be seen below:

Third Quarter

            3rdQ

            Indiv.  Total        Oper.                  Cash

            Contr.  Receipts     Exp.     PACs Debt    On-Hand

COLLINS (R) 621,022 1,039,412   241,876 366,509  0  3,104,891

Allen (D)   542,053   666,096   267,069  85,829  0  2,112,801

Second Quarter

COLLINS (R) 690,255 1,266,772   162,707 424,634  0  2,307,355

Allen (D)   965,881 1,084,666   179,076  78,850  0  1,717,974

First Quarter

COLLINS (R) 440,863   836,675    64,042 389,619  0  1,203,690

Allen (D)*  315,465   393,243    82,499  77,600  0    812,484

As can be seen, Collins began the campaign by out raising Allen 2-1. Allen subsequently closed the gap second quarter, helped by more than $350,000 raised online in response to a Lieberman hosted Collins fundraiser, a feat accomplished by tapping into the nigh-insane rage felt at Joe Lieberman by many on the online left. This quarter the interest in the race slowed down, indicating that Allen is much more dependent on national donations. This is illustrated by the fact that all of Allen’s decline is in the category of personal donations that have declined by more than $432,000 for him, whereas they have fallen only $69,000 for Collins. In terms of PAC money, Allen actually collected more this quarter than last quarter.

What can we take from this is that Allen is far more dependent on national attention than Collins is, and therefore is likely to suffer substantially from the distraction presented by the Presidential race next year. That said the DSCC has far more money than its GOP counterpart, which should make up for a large degree of the discrepancy.