August 05, 2014 10:09 AM UTC

No "Consolidation Bonus" For Beauprez

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• by: Colorado Pols

AP's Ivan Moreno reports via the Colorado Springs Gazette:

Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper has a fundraising edge against Republican gubernatorial challenger Bob Beauprez in their first head-to-head month.

Hickenlooper's campaign said the governor raised about $353,000, while Beauprez's campaign reported about $261,000.

It's the first fundraising report since Beauprez became the Republican nominee on June 24. The reporting period covers June 26 to July 26.

Beauprez has $235,413 cash on hand. He spent most of the money he had raised previously on a four-way Republican primary.

One of the arguments made by Republicans, including commenters on this blog, in defense of the overall lackluster fundraising numbers we saw during the GOP gubernatorial primary, was that Republican support was divided among several relatively equal contenders. It's a reasonable point, and it makes sense that whoever won the primary should benefit from a unified Republican donor base. In fact its important that this happen, since as you can see, Beauprez spent most of his cash on hand while unopposed incumbent Gov. John Hickenlooper banked his huge fundraising hauls through the primary. If Beauprez doesn't want to start writing vanity campaign checks in August, he needs the GOP donor base to pony up.

Interesting, then, that they don't appear to be doing so.