January 18, 2022 10:25 AM UTC

Yet Another Sad Trombone for Heidi Ganahl

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• by: Colorado Pols

As readers of this blog are well aware, we have regularly labeled the gubernatorial campaign of Republican Hiedi Heidi Ganahl as the worst campaign for governor in the entire country. For her part, Ganahl has been very helpful in cementing that argument through her own campaign #FAILs.

Ganahl’s gubernatorial campaign quietly filed its Q4 2021 fundraising report over the weekend. We say “quietly” because we wouldn’t want anybody to know these numbers, either.

In the last three months of 2021, Ganahl raised $267,000 and wrote herself a check for $200,000, leaving her fledgling campaign with $351,430 in the bank to start 2022.

If you’re wondering how these numbers compare to previous Republican candidates for governor — none of whom were ultimately elected to the position — we did the research for you.

It’s not good.

We include Dan Maes here because he did (improbably) go on to win the Republican Party nomination for governor after Scott McInnis imploded in a plagiarism scandal. Other than Maes, however, no legitimate Republican candidate for governor has started an election year in the last decade-plus with less money in the bank than Ganahl. And it’s not like fundraising dollars are being split among multiple Republican candidates in 2022. Ganahl is bombing despite being the clear frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

The only thing that saved Ganahl from a Maes-like fundraising quarter is her own $200,000 contribution to the campaign. Ganahl burned through $239,000 in Q4, largely to pay salaries and fees for various consultants. Had she not written herself that check, she would have only added $28,224 to her campaign coffers in the final months of 2021.

Perhaps Ganahl is able and/or willing to self-fund her campaign to the tune of many millions of dollars. If not, there is no realistic scenario whereby she ends up being the next governor of Colorado.