April 08, 2010 09:11 PM UTC

Show Colorado the Money!

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• by: Colorado Pols

Around the country, political analysts will be paying close attention to the Q1 fundraising reports for the 36 U.S. Senate races. Colorado is one of the 8-10 seats around the country placed in the “toss-up” category (depending on the pundit), and as such there are many eyes upon our fair state.

Many observers see Q1 as a make-or-break fundraising period for Democrat Andrew Romanoff and Republicans Ken Buck and Tom Wiens. But how much money should they be expected to raise in order to still have a chance to win in August or November? And how are Colorado’s candidates doing in their fundraising in comparison to other states?

We compared Colorado’s fundraising numbers with those of similar states, and what we found is surprising: Most of Colorado’s Senate candidates are raising just a fraction of what candidates in other states are pulling down.

For this purpose, we took a look at the 9 states around the country that have a similar number of Congressional members (a roundabout way of saying that these states are similar in size). Here are those 9 states with either 6, 7 or 8 Members of Congress: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

Of those 9 states, one does not have a Senate race in 2010 (Minnesota), and 6 are considered by most national pundits to be safe seats (Alabama, Arizona, Iowa, Maryland, South Carolina and Wisconsin). That leaves us with two other similarly-sized states with “competitive” Senate races in which to compare: Kentucky and Louisiana.

Here’s how the fundraising numbers compare through the end of 2009, since most Q1 reports are not yet available. The numbers listed below represent total amounts raised through Dec. 31, 2009:

COLORADO

Michael Bennet (D): $4.8 million

Jane Norton (R): $1.1 million

Tom Wiens (R): $728k

Andrew Romanoff (D): $630k

Ken Buck (R): $537k

KENTUCKY

Jack Conway (D): $2.3 million

Trey Greyson (R): $1.7 million

Rand Paul (R): $1.7 million

Dan Mongiardo (D): $1.47 million

LOUISIANA

David Vitter (R): $4.5 million

Charles Melancon (D): $1.96 million




As you can see, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet has outraised everyone in this comparison, and among other Colorado candidates, only Republican Jane Norton is anywhere close to what the other candidates have been able to collect. Romanoff, Buck and Wiens aren’t even in the same ballpark.

In other words, there’s going to be no way for Romanoff, Buck or Wiens to sugarcoat a poor Q1 of fundraising. Raising $300-400k just isn’t going to cut it at this point in the race. Frankly, we’d say that anything significantly short of Norton’s $816,000 in Q1 is going to have the fat lady warming up her lungs. If Romanoff, Buck or Wiens fail to raise at least $750,000 in Q1, they won’t even be close to what other Senate candidates around the country had already raised before January.

As we’ve said before, in politics money begets more money because most major donors save their checks for the candidates most likely to win. It’s almost impossible to recover financially from a poor fundraising performance after April 1, because it’s so hard to convince people to write a big check when so few others have done so. And as we’ve said over and over again, without solid fundraising, you can’t get on TV. And if you can’t get on TV in a major statewide race, you cannot win. Period.