Over the last few days a number of reports have come out detailing the fundraising efforts of Maine’s gubernatorial candidates. In addition to the story from Down East cited by Ross on Lynne William’s fundraising efforts, the Augusta Insider recently provided some numbers on the various independent candidates for governor in Maine:
There are eight unenrolled candidates for governor. Five of them have declared as privately financed candidates, while six of them are seeking clean election money. So how are they doing in the money race? Well, except for Eliot Cutler, they’ve all missed the starting gun.
The privately-financed Cutler has raised $266,485 and spent $183,159.58, for $83,325.42 cash-on-hand. This puts him about on par with Rosa Scarcelli, who had about $85,000 cash-on-hand, and gives him more cash than Paul LePage, Matt Jacobson, John Richardson, and Libby Mitchell. Steven Rowe, Bruce Poliquin, and Les Otten all have more cash-on-hand than Cutler. In other words, Cutler is not only raising money, he’s seriously competing with the major-party candidates and their fundraising – no mean feat.
The other independent candidates? Not so much . . .
Most of the major-party candidates running Clean are already there, or well on their way. In Maine elections, if you don’t qualify for Clean Elections funding, you can’t switch and run privately financed after the deadline. You just don’t have any money.